The quick or short Language Questions Thread (not grammar)

I think the closest English translation is “things always come in threes”

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Question
I’m watching an anime and a scene shows a hypnotist 催眠術師 that’s hypnotizing a guy. The latter, in a state of visible confusion, says “俺 そういうのかからない人なんで”
What does this mean? And what verb is かかる? There are multiple choices on jisho, and it’s hard to pick a sensed meaning out of the proposed ones of any verb.
About なんで at the end, I suppose it’s just like, asking - “statement x, why?”

Without knowing the かからない meaning I’d hazard to translate it as “Why am I such an x person”

This is what follows:


But I can’t translate the captions since the voice also reads a slightly different version

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It’s probably definition 12 “to be caught in”, which (if jisho lines up with Goo) would be

  1. 12
  2. ㋐望ましくないことがこちらの身に及んでくる。身にふりかかる。「迷惑が―・る」「疑いが―・る」
  3. ㋑負担すべきものとして押し付けられる。課せられる。「税金が―・る」

Which I do think matches. (I have no intention of reading all the Japanese definitions to make sure it’s not another one though…) I’d probably translate it as “affect” in this case.

なんで would be なので I think.

So the whole sentence is “I’m not someone who’s affected by that kind of thing, so…”

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かかる has an absolute ton of senses – it’s really one of those verbs that a lot of the time you have to gradually pick up “this noun takes this verb as the idiomatic choice” as you go along.

The Progressive dictionary defines this sense as:

II

1〔ある作用を受ける〕
    まんまと計略に掛かった
    He fell an easy prey to their plot.
    彼女は暗示に掛かりやすい
    She is suggestible./She is easily influenced by suggestion.
    催眠術に掛かった
    She was hypnotized.

So

== “that stuff doesn’t work on me”, i.e. I’m not a person hypnosis works on.

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It doesn’t, by the way; dictionaries number senses of a word essentially independently. If it happens to be number 12 in both cases here that’s pure luck.

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I think they do make an effort to line them up very often (otherwise there are a lot of coincidences), so I really meant “if jisho lines up with Goo in this instance”. I get your point though and Goo does have twice as many definitions as jisho in this case, so probably can’t rely on the ordering. :joy:

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The JMDICT editorial policy says nothing about trying to align sense numberings with any other dictionary, so I really do think it’s a mix of coincidence and sometimes contributors having used Daijisen as a reference when creating a new entry.

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Weird thing is, the guy was visibly hypnotized :joy: so I’m not sure if it was just a funny situation like, the guy says “that’s not gonna work on me” and the following moment he’s there hypnotized…? Makes sense, and the following が!! would be the conjunctive “but”, right?

“That’s not gonna work on me”… But! It did (or whatever, still can’t decipher the following)"

が!!
この後あろうことか
吉田がまさかの
大暴れ!!

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誰かに試すの?
イヤイヤ あんなの やらせなんだよ。俺だってバカじゃないんだ。

Can someone explain the nuance of it being 俺だって and not 俺は?
I would’ve said something more like …だって俺はバカじゃないんだ。
Probably just overthinking and it’s just a weird word order? Anyway I’m curious of discerning the nuance

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Got it!! :pray:

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it’s being used as a particle rather than a conjunction (compare meanings 1/2 with meanings 3/4 on jisho)

the difference is roughly
だってバカじゃないんだ = I’m not an idiot either/even I’m not an idiot
だって俺はバカじゃないんだ = because I’m not an idiot

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How do you understand this sentence (in bold)?

The text

このため、電話の会社NTT東日本とNTT西日本は、家に電話がかかってきたとき、電話をした人の番号を出る「ナンバー・ディスプレー」というサービスを無料にすることにしました。このサービスは、1か月440円かかりますが、70歳以上の人がいる家庭が申し込むと、今年5月から無料になります。

電話をした人に、番号を知らせるように、機械の声で伝える「ナンバー・リクエスト」も、申し込むと無料になります。

I understand it as "To have the calling person give you their phone number, you can apply for the service “Number request” that gives out the request in a machine voice." But I’m not really sure bc of the 番号を知らせるように part, who are we giving this phone number to? :smiling_face_with_tear:

yeah I think you’ve got it right.

ナンバー・レクエスト looks like a service that asks a caller who’s hiding their number to let you see their number before it connects you
https://www.isdn-info.co.jp/display/option_request.html

basically, the callee will be given the caller’s (電はした人) number if the caller consents. (see the link for the exact process)

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I cheated and looked it up on NTT’s website :slight_smile: “Number request” is a service you can set up so that if a caller who’s withholding their number tries to call you, they get played an automated message that says “this number doesn’t accept anonymous calls; please call again without withholding your number”.

Knowing what the service does, this is then a bit easier:
電話をした人に、番号を知らせるように、機械の声で伝える「ナンバー・リクエスト」
“The ‘number request’ service which tells the caller to provide their number with an automated voice”

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Nyhello

So another Pokémon manga problem

オレは2回の攻撃でレベルの差を見切った

So 2 issues, firstly レベル is used as furigana for 力量?

Secondly I don’t understand the sentence, at all.

Something about 2 attacks and a level difference that Gary can see?

I don’t really know how to parse it, maybe it’s some grammar point I’ve not learned? Seems like basic particles though

Furigana can be used any way that people want. The furigana expresses what the person literally said, while the thing the furigana is attached to expresses the meaning.

It’s typical for fiction to use this method to introduce original terminology. Here it’s just a way to give some flavor to レベル.

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Can I bump this to get a bit of help parsing the sentence? :)))))

I (topic) (with/at the second attack) (the difference in level) (clearly perceived)

i.e. : I saw the difference in level clearly with/at the second attack.

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Perfect, thank you!

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