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Lesson 18: 〜って = は?

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Today we're going to talk about "trying to do something" and from there we're going to broaden out into the wider meanings of the "to" quotation particle because this is a very central part of Japanese that's used all the time.

So we need to get a firm understanding of what it is and how it works.

Now, last week we learned the volitional helper うand よう which makes a word end with the sound "ou" or "you" and expresses will.

If we're "trying" to do something we use the volitional for this.

So if we say, "yama-ni noborou to suru", this means "try to climb mountain".

Why does it mean that?

What's this construction actually doing?

Well, "noborou" expresses the will to climb.

If we say "yama-ni noborou", we're saying, "Let's climb the mountain".

Literally, set our will toward climbing the mountain.

"Noborou-to suru" means doing the act implied by setting our will to climb the mountain.

If we just wanted to say "climb the mountain", we'd just say, "yama-ni noboru".

But we're not saying "climb the mountain", we're saying "try to climb the mountain".

Therefore, do the action implied in setting our will / enact our will to climb the mountain, whether we succeed in actually climbing it or not.

Some people find the distinction between "try climbing" and "try to climb" confusing.

And that's really only because of the way it's expressed in English.

In Japanese, as we learned recently, if we want to say, "try climbing the mountain", we say, "yama-ni nobotte miru."

The difference is that "try climbing / try eating / try swimming" doesn't imply any doubt about the fact that we can actually do it.

It implies doubt about what would be the result when we've done it.

"Try eating" - we know we can eat, but don't know if we'll like it.

"Try eating" - "tabete miru" - means "eat and see".

Eat it and then see what the result is, see if you like it, see if you don't like it.

"yama-ni nobotte miru" means "climb the mountain and see".

See whether it was hard, see what the view's like from the top.

"Keeki-wo tabeyou-to suru" - "try to eat the cake" - implies that we don't know whether you can in fact eat the cake or not, but try it anyway.

Maybe it's a huge cake and it would be very hard to eat it all.

So "shite miru" - "do and see" - implies that there's no doubt about the fact that we can do it, but there is some doubt about what the result of having done it is going to be.

Are we going to like it?

Is the building going to fall down?

We don't know what will happen when we've done it, but we know we can do it.

"Shiyou-to suru" implies that we don't know whether we can do it or not, but we are going to try to do it.

So, an important thing here is to see what the to-particle is doing.

-To is encapsulating the sentence that came before it: "yama-ni noborou" - will to climb the mountain.

It isn't quoting it.

It's not something we've said; it's not something we've thought, exactly.

The point is that it's taking the essence, the meaning, the import of that "yama-ni noborou" and putting it into action.

And we're going to find that in other cases.

For example, we may read that someone "ho'-to shita" . Now, what does that mean?

"Ho' " is in fact a sound effect.

It's the sound effect of breathing a sigh of relief: "ho' ".

But "ho'-to suru" actually does not mean "breathe a sigh of relief".

What it means is, "feel relief / be relieved".

So what we're doing here is enacting the idea, the feeling, expressed in "ho' ", the sigh of relief.

Just as in "yama-ni noborou-to suru" we're enacting the feeling, the import of setting our will toward climbing the mountain, that is, trying to climb it.

Now, similarly, if we say "Sakura-wo nihonjin-to suru", it means regarding Sakura as a Japanese person.

Now, we might also say, "Sakura-wo nihonjin-ni suru", but that means something quite different.

It means "turn Sakura into a Japanese person".

-Ni is the target of an action.

A little while ago we had a lesson in which we talked about "Sakura-ga kaeru-ni naru" - "Sakura becomes a frog".

Now, we've also talked about the way that "aru" and "suru" are the Eve and Adam of Japanese verbs, "aru" being the primary self-move verb and "suru" the primary other-move verb.

"Naru" is very closely related to "aru" - "aru" is "be", "naru" is "become".

And so if we say "-ni naru" it means to become something.

If we say "-ni suru" that's the other-move version of "-ni naru".

It means to "turn something into something".

So if we say, "majo-ga Sakura-wo kaeru-ni shita" - "the witch turned Sakura into a frog".

"Sakura-wo nihonjin-ni suru" - turning Sakura into a Japanese person; but "Sakura-wo nihonjin-to suru" - regarding Sakura as a Japanese person / taking Sakura as a Japanese person.

"Kaban-wo makura-to suru."

"Kaban" is "bag", "makura" is "pillow" and this means "using your bag as a pillow".

You're not turning your bag into a pillow, it's not becoming a pillow, but you're regarding it as one and using it as one.

So here we have some of the uses of "-to suru".

Generally speaking, it relates to how we regard something.

Now, if we say "-to shite", this isn't so much the act of regarding something as something, but seeing something in the light of being something.

So, in English it would usually be translated simply as "as".

So, "kojin-to shite no iken" means "my opinion as a private person", as opposed to, say, my opinion as president of the Frog Jockey Society.

Or we could say, "Amerikajin-to shite chiisai" - "She's small for an American / As an American, she's small.

So we can see that the quotation function of -to is used not only to quote ideas and thoughts, but also to take the feeling of something and bundle it up and then say something about it.

Of course, the most basic thing that can follow -to is "iu", in which case it's a literal quotation, -to iu (it's usually pronounced not so much "-to iu" as "-to yu").

And this again can be used not just in a literal quotation but also saying how something is said or what it's called.

So, "Fushigi-no kuni-no Arisu-to iu hon", means "book called Fushigi-no kuni-no Arisu".

And the -to in "-to iu" can be reduced simply to -tte.

So we can say "-tte iu" - "Fushigi-no kuni-no Arisu-tte iu hon", or it can be reduced down to just -tte.

"Fushigi-no kuni-no Arisu-tte hon" still means "The book called Alice in Wonderland".

So people sometimes get a little confused when they just see this -tte.

It means -to or -to iu, but the thing that really confuses people sometimes is that it can also be used in place of the wa-particle.

Now, this seems particularly strange, until you realize what it's actually doing.

If we remember what the wa-particle is, the wa-particle is the topic-marking particle.

So when we say "Sakura-wa nihonjin da", we can put that into English as "Speaking of Sakura, she is Japanese person".

Now, does that start to make things a little clearer?

"Sakura-tte nihonjin da" - "Sakura-say, she Japanese-person is" -

"Sakura-speaking of, she Japanese-person is" - "Sakura (topic), she Japanese-person is".

Now, we can't say -to or -to iu in place of the wa-particle.

It's a very casual use.

We just use -tte.

But you can see that it's really, even though it's very colloquial, it's not just some random and inexplicable thing.

It's setting up Sakura as the thing we're talking about, just as -wa is.

Now, there are other extended uses of -to.

We'll cover those as we come to them.