アーニャ is a toddler and speaks broken Japanese. Like, actually.
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Yes I knew, I didn’t mean “Anya uses it so it’s correct grammar” 
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Nah, Anya is 6 years old. Don’t say otherwise or Loid might take you out. 
Is this something that is ungrammatical but still commonly done? Or basically not done aside from young kids who are still learning how to speak?
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Can’t comment on real life but I often see characters in anime just adding です or っす (more slangy) to the end of a sentence even though it’s technically incorrect. That doesn’t mean you should use it in real life but I guess Japanese people would understand it. (Note: I haven’t heard this said by any non-fictional people up to now.)
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I sometimes say it, but I’m not a 日本人 and I’m pretty sure it’s not correct as Leebo mentioned.
It might be a little confusing, because
- characters in anime and manga use it
- one often hears a negation in simple tense like ない + です, but that’s correct (I think?), because ない is technically an adjective
- sometimes there is a ん between, but it’s so faint that it sounds like なるです and not なるんです (though with なる it would be pretty clear due to pronunciation)
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Is it possible you misheard なったんですか ?
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Here is an excerpt from Maggie先生’s site that explains how it’s used in real life as well I guess:
Edit: This does not include the usage of just plain です after a verb though. It might me that this contraction comes from んです→っす as well.
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Everything is possible
Disclaimer that I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, but could it be that it’s inspired by the English phrase “a smile playing at one’s lips”? (And/or it’s just being used poetically here.) (I think I did come across a phrase that expresses that before but it used 乗せる or something.) Although I suppose it also depends what exactly that に is doing there. Like, in English you could say that someone’s smiling at what they’re saying, but idk if that would be に or で in Japanese or said another way entirely. But I don’t think 奏でる can take an indirect object so I don’t think it’s that に here…
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Thank you! That indeed sounds reasonable. If I got it right what you’re suggesting is this:
言葉に = into the words
笑みを奏でる = playing a smile (about one’s lips)
I don’t really see how they would fit together yet though… Maybe “breathing a smile into the words” or “playing a smile about (?) the words” (weird phrasing but yeah).
I think it’s more “at (in response to) the words”
I actually, not long after typing that reply, came across this sentence while reading:
思わず呟いた言葉に、相槌が返ってきた。
So that sense, of her smiling in response to the words she’s speaking, doesn’t seem to be out of the question.
Like,
“I will roll today too,” the girl says, the girl says, a smile playing at her lips at the words!
…or something along those lines
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Native (British) English speaker for more than sixty years. I have never heard mansion used in this way.
Perhaps I don’t get out much.
— Dave
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In this case the line is definitely playing on the similar line from earlier in the song 言葉に意味を奏でながら – but I can’t make sense of how the lyrics are using the verb here compared to the dictionary examples and meanings…
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Should vocabulary/kanji questions go in this thread?
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Sure, seems as good a place as any.
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A very random question that I’ve thought about, is the expression on The Great British Bake-Off, when the judges says a cake is “eating well”. Passive form. Is there a way to translate that to Japanese and how would you get that particular nuance across?
Because, I doubt the passive of “eat”, translate culturally in this case. It’s not about transitive/intransitive only, it’s about nuance the judges going for “academic speech”, is how I’d express it in Swedish. Passive, at all times. *Very objective, lacking in emotion, just description. You avoid inserting yourself in all sentences as a subject."
It sounds different from what I know in Swedish, but I don’t know how much than that odd comparison of English-Swedish. It’s just super odd every time I hear they utter that expression, as if they’re not the ones - as judges no less in this competition - expressing the opinion they hold.
So how could you transfer that into Japanese? The transitive/intransitive divide hardly seems enough, or is it? 
Or I guess, multiple answers might be possible here, but I’m just curious in how you’d translate the whole thing into Japanese, when it’s such a short phrase even: “X is good eating/X is eating well”
Edit: Tagging @Leebo as I can’t think of anyone else that might have an idea here! I hope you take it as a compliment <3
This isn’t an actual answer to your question since I don’t know enough to answer it, but it’s interesting to me that this seems similar to how you can use the passive form in Japanese as a way of speaking humbly. Although it seems to be used in the opposite situation here since the judges are on a socially higher place rather than a socially lower place.
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Yeah, you’re actually making my question clearer to me: how, within this system of creating polite speech in Japan, would you do this thing, that isn’t really about that, but rather about "distancing of critical judgement and formal critique - from yourself - and by doing so, making it more objective, and by effect, it’s also less personal = more polite.
There’s a whole lot going on with a statement like that. It just baffle’s the mind really, that you can get that sentiment across with 2 words! XD That’s language efficiency!
@Leebo Well, I got more specific I think, when I got help thinking about it.
A cake “eating well” sounds super British to me (or at least not something I’ve heard anyone say), and I’m not sure I can comment on it, lol
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That ‘eating well’ phrase must be a UK English thing - have never heard it in 'murican English (pardon my colloquialism, if that’s what it is)…
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