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Lesson 52: Sentence Analysis In Context

[Video Link]

Today we're going to get our hands dirty by digging into some real-life Japanese by courtesy of our Japanese partner channel, Akasic Tails.

And we're going to look at some of the real Japanese structures that we'll encounter in real life and we'll learn how to analyze them, and once we've got that clear in our heads we'll be able to understand them on the fly.

Last week we looked at a Japanese "kaidan" – a scary story – and there was so much important material to analyze in the first sentence that we didn't get beyond the first sentence.

So, this week I think we can progress a little further and a little faster into the story.

So, I'm going to play you the portion I want to analyze today and then we'll start analyzing.

Of course, we'll start from the second sentence because we've analyzed the first one rather thoroughly already.

So, the next part is "nomikai-ga shuuryou shita ato" and this is a time statement.

It's setting the time of the action we're now going to describe.

Now, strictly speaking, we should say "ato-ni" rather than simply "ato", but again we can drop that because we're talking relatively informally.

So having set the time, we then say what happened:

"kanojo-wa apaato-wo dete shibaraku aruita".

So, she left the apartment and walked for a while.

So then we have "futo senpai-no ie-ni keitai denwa-wo wasurete kita koto-ni kidzuita".

"Futo" -- suddenly -- "senpai-no ie-ni" -- in senpai's house -- "keitai denwa" -- portable telephone -- "-wo wasurete kita koto-ni kidzuita" -- wasurete kita is wasureru, forget, joined to "kuru".

"Wasurete kuru" is literally "forgetting-coming" -- or what it means is really "leaving behind": "wasurete kita", coming while having forgotten her portable telephone in senpai's apartment.

"koto-ni kidzuita" -- she realized that that's what she'd done.

"Koto" makes a noun, or bundles everything before it into that noun.

So forgetting her phone in senpai's apartment was the "koto" that she now realized.

So why is it "koto-ni kidzuku" and not "koto-wo kidzuku"?

The English-language Japanese dictionaries and textbooks will tell you that "kidzuku" is a verb that means the same as English "realize".

And in practice it means much the same, but structurally it's different.

It's made up of an amalgam of two words that we already know well.

One is "ki" which means "spirit" or "mind" or "feelings" and the other is "tsuku" which means "stick" or "adhere".

So what this literally means is "spirit stick" and what we're doing is sticking our spirit to something, that is, our attention, our mind, our feelings become adhered to a particular thing.

And in English we express that differently by saying that we "realize" -- make real -- a fact.

In Japanese, our spirit adheres to a fact.

In Japanese, a very common expression is "ki-wo tsukete kudasai", which is translated as "take care", but what it literally means is "stick your spirit".

Stick it to what? Well, stick it to your surroundings, stick it to what you're doing.

In other words, pay attention. Now, the translation "take care" is actually better culturally than "pay attention", because "pay attention" sounds like an order, doesn't it?

And that's not the atmosphere of saying "ki-wo tsukute".

In practice, culturally it means something more like "take care", so the translation isn't wrong but the structure isn't the same.

So now we get an idea why we say "koto-ni kidzuku" rather than "koto-wo kidzuku".

If we stick a poster to a wall, the wall, the thing it's stuck to, is not the direct object, is it?

The direct object is the poster; the wall is the ultimate target of that action.

And ultimate targets, in Japanese, are always marked by -ni.

As we know, the indirect object, the ultimate target, is marked by -ni.

Now, even if we take the human actor out of this and just say "The poster sticks to the wall", we're still saying "to the wall", aren't we?

We're not saying "The poster sticks the wall", which is what we would say if the wall were the direct object.

We're saying "The poster sticks to the wall". The wall is the target of the poster's sticking.

So by the same token, if we stick our spirit to something or if our spirit sticks to something, the something to which it sticks is the target, not the direct object of that sticking.

Now, this is important to know, because it's another small example of the way that "Eihongo" -- so-called English-language Japanese grammar, the stuff you find in the textbooks and the websites everywhere -- it's another way in which it simply messes up our understanding of the logic and structure of a very, very logical language.

Because what they'll tell you is "'kidzuku' is a verb that means 'realize', but it takes -ni". Now, leaving aside the fact that no verb can take -ni or any other logical particle (only a noun can ever take a logical particle), we know what they mean.

They mean that this word, that means "realize", which in English treats the thing realized as the direct object, actually treats the thing realized as a target and therefore marks it with -ni and "this is one of those weird quirks of Japanese that you have to learn in every individual case because it's so random and irrational". It's not random and irrational at all.

While "kidzuku" is broadly equivalent to "realize" in English, it's not the same structure.

We're not real-izing, making something real, we are sticking our spirit to something and that something is a target and therefore it's marked by -ni, just as targets are always marked by -ni.

Japanese doesn't go in for random irrationalities.

You need to go to European languages if you want that.

And if I can just pop in a little footnote here.

This talk of verbs taking particles is hugely, hugely misleading.

It's not just a quibble to say that logical particles can only ever belong to nouns, never to verbs.

I said I knew what they were talking about when they spoke of verbs taking particles, but what they're talking about is horribly wrong on every occasion.

It's based on the fallacy that logical particles can perform different functions in relation to different verbs. And they never, ever can.

The only reason for ever thinking so is, as in this case, misunderstanding what the verb is actually doing, usually because they assume that it works exactly like its nearest English equivalent, which is very often not the case.

And as we've seen in the case of the potential helper verb and adjectives of subjectivity, this fallacy covers a huge area of Japanese and makes a very large contribution to the inability of many students to understand Japanese.

Because it seems so illogical and random when in fact it's completely logical.

That's why we call them "logical particles".

They never change their function regardless of what adjective or verb is involved in the sentence.

They always, always do the same thing.

And if you're at all confused about what I'm saying here, please see the ninth lesson in this course.

And I'll put a card up for that right now.

"Kanojo-wa apaato-ni hikikaeshi senpai-no heya-ni modotte yobirin-wo osu."

So she returned to senpai's apartment. "Hikikaeshi", that means "return", and as we've seen before, the i-stem of a verb -- the verb is "hikikaesu", which is "return" -- and particularly in narrative we can use the i-stem of a verb in much the same way as we use the te-form of a verb to make it the first clause of a compound sentence.

So, she returned to senpai's apartment -- "senpai-no heya-ni modotte yobirin-wo osu". She returned to senpai's room and pushed the bell.

"Yobirin": "yobu" is "call", "rin" is the on-reading of "suzu", "a small bell", so "yobirin" is a "call-bell / a bell for calling".

"Osu": she presses the bell. And as we've seen before, in Japanese narrative it is allowable to use present-tense sentences within a past-tense narrative to add immediacy.

And the sense here is that we've come to a point here, to a point almost like a landing on the stairs where we rest for a moment and make this our present.

She pressed the bell.

"Tokoro ga hannou-ga nai."

"Tokoro ga" is an expression that we'll often find in narrative, again.

"Ga": This "ga" is obviously not the particle -ga.

It's the other "ga", which is a contrastive conjunction and essentially means "but".

Why do we add "tokoro" to it?

Well, as we discussed in a previous lesson, "tokoro", which means "place", can also mean a place in time.

It's almost like a resting place in time. It gives us a temporary "now", as it were.

So when we say "tokoro ga", we're saying "at that point / at that time, but".

So we're using this as a narrative conjunction to mark the fact that something is happening that's contrary to our expectations or wishes.

So, "tokoro ga hannou-ga nai". So although she pressed the bell, there was, unexpectedly or contrary to our hopes, our wishes, there was no answer.

And when she turned the doorknob... "Mawasu"

As we know, "mawaru" is to "go around", "mawasu" is the other-move version of "mawaru", so it's to "cause to go around".

When she caused the doorknob to turn, when she turned the doorknob, "kagi-wa kakatte inakatta." The lock existed in a state of not being locked, of not being hooked or hung or fixed.

A slightly confusing-seeming expression because it comes from the fact that Japanese people often lump together the concept of a key and the concept of a lock into one.

Strictly speaking, this could be called incorrect.

Really we're saying "joumae-ga kakatta" -- the lock was fixed or hooked, but it's common in Japanese to say the key was fixed or hooked ("kagi-ga kakatta") and it would seem even a little unnatural to say it correctly.

And because the door was unlocked, "kanojo-wa sono mama naka-ni haitte itta" -- she went in.

"Sono mama" we discussed in another video and, as we know, a "mama" is an unchanged condition.

"Sono mama" means "in that unchanged condition / just as it is".

And we can see here how that concept is being extended a little in a way that we'll find often.

So, for example, if we're talking about edamame, and we say "sono mama taberu", we mean "eat them just as it is, eat them without changing their condition, eat them without doing anything further to prepare for eating them" and this is what "sono mama" means here.

Because the door was unlocked, she went in just like that, just in her present condition.

She didn't press the bell again, she didn't wait to be invited, but "sono mama" -- in the unchanged condition of that moment -- she went in.

And in the next lesson in this series we'll find out what happened when she did go in.