The secret life of subclauses

It's taken about a year and a half, but finally we're learning about subclauses. We did some exercise from the J4BP2 Workbook, and in true J4BP fashion, a lot of mysterious grammar was slipped in without any explanation.

Let's look at a sentence and try to figure it out:

まり子さんは真一さんが何さいのとき生まれましたか。

(Mariko-san wa Shin'ichi-san ga nansai no toki umaremashita ka.)

The translation of this sentence is:

"How old was Mr Shin'ichi (真一) when Ms Mariko (まり子) was born?"

(umareru = to be born, -sai = years old.)

This sentence combines two clauses using 'when':

1. How old was Mr Shin'ichi?
2. Ms Mariko was born.

Let's look at the sentence again. I put clause 1 between ( and ), and "when" between [ and ].

まり子さんは(真一さんが何さい)[のとき]生まれましたか。

Mariko-san wa (Shin'ichi-san ga nansai) [no toki] umaremashita ka.

The first thing you'll notice is that 'when' is applied to clause 1, not to clause 2: the subclause is 真一さんが何さいのとき, which translates to 'When Mr Shin'ichi was how old?' So where we would normally say in English, "How old was S when M was born?", the Japanese literally says, "M was born when S was how old?" The reason we're not given the normal order is simply because we haven't learned that yet (a verb followed by とき is in the next chapter of the book). But I checked with a native speaker, and both sentences mean the exact same thing, he says.

The second thing to note is that the subject of the subclause has a が after it, instead of a は. If this was a standalone sentence (like sentence 1 above), it would translate into Japanese as 真一さんは何さいでしたか ("As for Mr M, how old was he?"). But when it's used as a subclause, the は turns into a が. This helps you to identify 真一さん as belonging to the subclause, not the main clause. In this case, it's pretty obvious anyway, but it still helps you to place the ( and ), so to speak.

The third thing is that there is a の between 何さい and とき. We've just learned that のとき follows nouns only, so that must mean that 何さい is strictly speaking a noun or noun phrase. Literally, it doesn't mean "how old" (an adjective, which you might expect from the -い at the end) but more something like "how many years" (a noun phrase).

Three pretty important points, and both the book and our sensei just skipped right over them.

Goed practice site

This is a newspaper for kids:

http://www.asagaku.com/article.html

To be or not to be

After yesterday's lesson, there was much confusion about a verb as simple and basic as 'to be'. Hopefully, this post makes things a bit clearer.

To begin, let's make a clear distinction between two meanings of 'to be':

The auxiliary verb or copula 'to be'. You use this word to say that two properties belong to the same thing.

For example, in 'John is a doctor', you say that the thing that has the property of being named John, also has the property of being a doctor. In 'The book is blue', you say that the thing that is a book is also a thing that is blue.

In short, the stuff on both sides of 'is' refers to the same entity. This is different from a verb like, say, 'punch': In 'Jim punched a doctor', 'Jim' and 'a doctor' are very clearly two different things.

This sense of 'to be' is expressed by the Japanese です.

The existence verb 'to be'. You use this word to say that a certain thing exists. Often, you also say something more about the thing, such as where it exists.

For example, in 'The cat is in the room', you can replace 'is' with 'exists' to create an equivalent, if slightly odd-sounding, sentence. (Compare 'Jim exists a doctor', which is plain wrong.)

This sense of 'is' is also often found with there: 'There's a book that explains this' means 'There exists a book that explains this' or 'A book exists that explains this.'

This sense of 'to be' is expressed by the Japanese ある (for things without a heart) or いる (for things with a heart: animals and people).

Confusingly, ある is also used to mean 'to have'. This sounds weird to us, but it's the product of the Japanese way of saying things in an impersonal way. So the sentence 私は本があります。literally means, 'As for me, there's a book', but what it actually means is 'I have/own a book'.

Fudeuchi-sensei also made a complex diagram showing all the forms of です; I'm reproducing it here in (hopefully) a simpler form.

Tense:	Plain form	Polite form
present positive (is)	だ	です
past positive (was)	だった	でした
present negative (isn't)	ではない	ではありません
past negative (wasn't)	ではなかった	ではありませんでした

In this table, the positive forms seem pretty straightforward: a plain past ending in -ta, a -su ending turning into -shita: this is all similar to a normal verb like たべる (if a bit more irregular).

But the negative forms look decidedly odd: they actually consist of a number of parts:

• で, which we learned is the -te form of です;
• は, which is the particle 'wa', as we can tell from the difference between the character and the pronunciation;
• a form of the verb ある that corresponds to the tense (e.g. ない is the plain present negative of ある, so the plain present negative of です is ではない) .

If you remember this as a basic rule (で＋は＋form of ある), the negative forms are already easier to remember.

As for the literal meaning, that's a bit harder (you can stop reading now if you want ;). We haven't yet encountered the construction "-te form + は", so we don't really know what は means here.

What I think it means literally is something like 'As for (a case of) being X, it doesn't exist' or 'There's no instance of being X'.

For example, これは本ではない breaks down as "this[topic] book be[topic] exist[plain neg]" which you could literally translate as "As for this, it being a book doesn't exist." or "As for this, there's no case of it being a book." which ultimately means, "This isn't a book".

The wonderful world of ～んです

For several lessons now, we've been introduced to ～んです, a replacement for the more direct or more neutral です at the end of a sentence. I just thought I'd summarize what we've learned so far, to help me remember and to have it all in one place.

Meaning

Depending on context (how often do we use that phrase!), the meaning or shade of meaning expressed by ～んです can differ and can be very difficult to translate. Here are the various meanings:

To make a point or to explain something

Example: you are buying an item of clothing for someone, but the one they give is too small. You ask for a bigger one, adding the explanation: これは わたしより たかい んです。If you disregard the ん, the sentence reads simply 'He's taller than me.' Adding the ん makes clear that this is meant to clarify your earlier statement. A good translation would be ,'He's taller than me, you see.'

To politely request information or advice

In this case, the ～んです is often followed by が.

Example: おみやげをかいたいんですが。Without the ん and the が, this would neutrally state 'I want to buy a souvenir'. Adding the ん and the が turns it into an implicit request. The closest English equivalent I could think of was, 'I'm looking for a souvenir' (as opposed to 'I want to buy...').

To ask for an explanation indirectly

This is used when asking a yes/no question rather than an open question ('why', 'how' etc). The two questions can be entirely different.

Example: まいあさこのじかんにくるんですか。Without ん, this means 'Do you come here every morning at this hour?' But using the ん turns it into a polite request for information as to the reason.

The answer to this question would typically also use んです, that is, if you felt a need to explain.

There isn't really an English translation, but in English, stating an observation completely neutrally would have the same effect. In this case, 'You're here early' with a slightly rising pitch.

As a prelude to an invitation

If your invitation comes in two parts: one describing the event you're inviting the other party, and another containing the actual request, then use んです in the first part.

Example: おんせんに　いくんですが、いっしょに　いかが　ですか。 Without ん, this is 'We're going to a hot spring, would you like to come along?' With ん, you sort of cushion the blow of the (perhaps unexpected) request in part 2. There is really no good English equivalent. The closest thing is something like, 'We're going to to a hot spring and I was wondering, would you like to come along?'

Declining an invitation

This is pretty much equivalent to giving an explanation and could equally well be translated by 'you see' at the end.

Example: ざんねんですが、ようじがあるんです。'I'm very sorry, but I have stuff to do, you see.' Another translation could be 'I'm very sorry, but the thing is, I have stuff to do.'

Unfinished sentence

You would use this if the rest of the sentence is either obvious or something you don't want to say (too private, embarrassing etc).

Example: くすりをのんだんですが... 'I drank medicine, but--' (Implied is that it didn't help.)