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の一つ - Grammar not divided into a lesson

 
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spurrymoses
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Joined: 24 Apr 2005
Posts: 399
Location: Sydney, Australia

PostPosted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 5:54 pm    Post subject: の一つ - Grammar not divided into a lesson

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This is another in the series of, grammar they don't necessarily go to the trouble to spell-out in text books. And fair enough.

This one is の一つ, which, in context, is meaning ...one of the things...

So I can say, one of the interesting things about that movie, is the big cat.
おもしろい映画の一つは 大きいねこ。
This sentence above has been approved by my partner as natural sounding Japanese, by the way Wink

I just wanted to jot this down in this forum, because I came across it in a more difficult sentence. It's not worth a separate grammar lesson, some things probably just aren't, I suppose. Given you know the word and the other surrounding grammar, you'd be expected to figure it out. But, in the case of the sentence below, given that I found the entire thing quite difficult, this grammar bit came up as something else I had to figure out before solving the puzzle. As such, I thought it worth mentioning.

I'm still not comfortable with the sentence below, given it's length and the length of individual grammatical elements. I'm specifically confused by the second という straight after another と言う - one has kanji, one doesn't.

This is the problem of going from Elementary to Intermediate, some things will just turn up in intermediate books, without warning. がんばる.

日本が アメリカによく聞かれて困る質問の一つに、”How are you?" は 日本語で何と言うか、というのがある。

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rohan
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Joined: 02 Sep 2005
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 1:37 pm    Post subject:

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Damn. That is the kind of sentence that trips me up time and time again. The book I'm using has というは。。ことだ to translate "the meaning of ..is"etc. Is that the right structure here? It doesn't seem to fit exactly..

It's really hard translating that into my mind in English, so I often just give up. What would be your best shot at it?

I think the kanji is optional. My text frequently interchanges them.

Here's another for you:

過労死というのは働きすぎたもとで死ぬということだ。

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spurrymoses
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Joined: 24 Apr 2005
Posts: 399
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 6:29 pm    Post subject:

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日本が アメリカによく聞かれて困る質問の一つに、”How are you?" は 日本語で何と言うか、というのがある。

Actually, I think I've just caught on to the last bit. The first (bracketed) fragment below is the subject of the second.

Like in the much simpler version ケン、という犬。The dog called 'Ken'.
So in this case, the thing that is like ケン (above) is practically the entire sentence leading up to it. Meaning something like 'there are sayings that we don't know how to say in japanese'.

[日本語で何と言うか] , というのがある

The other bit I don't seem to haven't learnt yet, is the use of passive-te-form followed by a base verb - as in 聞かれて困る質問. I really don't know what that expresses precisely. I can understand the passive use of 聞く to express 'things that are heard'. But why it's te form and then uses another verb after it, I'm not sure.

Funny thing is, it's used in a book where I know the rest of the grammar, and the lessons are right at my level. They've just thrown this in.

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Keith
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Joined: 07 Jun 2006
Posts: 191
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 6:55 pm    Post subject: my first post!

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You have two modifiers of 質問
困る質問 a troubling question
よく聞かれて困る質問 a troubling question that is often heard.

The kanji 言う is used when you literally mean, "to say."
Hiragana いう is used when speaking is not actually occuring, such as
ケンという犬

the same goes for others like いく
東京に行く
遊んでいく

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Tim
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Joined: 29 Jul 2005
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Location: Perth, Western Australia

PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 9:10 pm    Post subject:

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Quote:
過労死というのは働きすぎたもとで死ぬということだ。
Karoushi means to die from over-working.


Rohan, thanks for that sample sentence, i learnt a new word from that. :P
I hope no one will need to use it on me.. haha!

By the way Keith, thanks for that interesting mention about the kanji and hiragana versions of いう and いく. That was the first I heard of those finer details of their usage. I previously thought that 言う and いう were interchangable.

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JanneM
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Joined: 12 Jun 2006
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Location: Osaka

PostPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 3:13 pm    Post subject:

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Tim wrote:
By the way Keith, thanks for that interesting mention about the kanji and hiragana versions of いう and いく. That was the first I heard of those finer details of their usage. I previously thought that 言う and いう were interchangable.


That's pretty common; you're probably expected to just pick it up I think.

One example is 置く(おく), which as a base verb means to put something somewhere, but also has a meaning of doing something for later. With the first, concrete, meaning you usually use the kanji, while you never use it for the second (this goes for all "help" or modifier verbs after the て form of a base verb, I think).

So to put something beforehand is commonly 置いておく, pehaps おいておく, but never 置いて置く. In practice, this particular combination is of course shortened to 置いとく.

With that in mind (and remembering I'm just studying for level 2 like everybody else here), the example sentence part "聞かれて困る質問" is not one where 困る directly modifies 聞く, but instead the て-form is, I guess, a marker for being the cause for the (negative, emotional) "problematic question" after it.

In other words, it would be "...because we hear it often in america [as it is something we hear often in anerica, it is ], a problematic question". Or I'm talking completely out of my hat.

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