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Lesson 53: Horror

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Today we're going to encounter a lot of the structural points in Japanese that we've covered in this course of lessons in action, in real situations.

And we're going to do that by continuing with the "kaidan", the Japanese story, that we've been reading over the last few lessons by courtesy of our Japanese partner channel, Akasic Tails.

And we're going to be covering such a lot of points this time that I'll put up cards for some of the main ones but I've also made a supporting page on Kawajapa where you can go and look up any of these points and follow them up if you need to do so.

And I think it would be a very good idea to follow up anything that you're not absolutely clear about after we go through this story.

Now, to remind you where we got to at the end of last week's lesson, our heroine had gone to a drinking party at her senpai's apartment.

After she left the party and was walking home at night, she became aware that she'd left her "keitai denwa", her portable telephone, in senpai's apartment.

So she went back, pressed the bell, but there was no answer, turned the handle of the door and found that it wasn't locked.

So she walked right in.

So, let's see what happened next.

"Heya-no naka-wa denki-ga tsuite orazu."

Now, so long as we understand that "denki-wo tsukeru" means "turn on the lights" (literally it means "turn on the electricity", but it in fact refers to the lights), the only problem with this clause is "orazu".

What does that mean?

Well, "oru" means the same as "iru", which is to "be".

Generally we're told that it means to "be" of animate beings, like animals and people.

It's not quite as simple as that and I've explained that in another lesson, which I'll link.

"Oru" is a rather older form of "iru", but we encounter it in a variety of circumstances.

For example, it is used in keigo as a humble form, "kenjougo" form, of "iru" which we use to humble our own actions and possessions, but it's also used in dialect, in Kansai-ben for example, and it's used in literary contexts to give a literary narrative feel.

And that's how it's being used here.

So, "oru" means "iru", but what does "orazu" mean?

Well, you also have to understand that "-zu" is also a piece of older Japanese which gives a literary feeling to a narrative and it's simply a negative helper like "-nai".

So why is it "orazu"?

Well, that's because while "iru", as we know, is an ichidan verb, "oru", as it happens,is a godan verb.

So, as with all godan verbs, the negative helper is attached to the a-stem.

So that's what's happening here.

"Orazu" means the same as "inai".

So, "denki-ga tsuite orazu" means "the electricity existed in a state of not having been switched on" or, in plain English, the lights were off.

"Makkura de": "makkura" is "pitch-dark", literally "true dark / complete dark".

"Kura", of course, we know as "kurai", the adjective "dark", and we know that when we see an adjective without its -i on the end, if it makes a word at all, it will be a noun.

We also know that if we see a word that is all kanji, it's almost certainly going to be a noun.

So "makkura" is "pitch darkness".

"Makkura de" -- the "de" here is the te-form of "da" or "desu".

So, "heya-no naka-wa denki-ga tsuite orazu makkura de" -- "As for the inside of the room, the lights were off, it was pitch dark".

"Dou yara senpai-wa mou nete shimatta rashii."

"Dou yara": in this case means "it seems, it appears to be the case" and this is actually working in tandem with the "-rashii" at the end, which also means "seems like, appears to be".

And we've covered this in a previous lesson as well.

So in between this sandwich that gives us the "it appears to be the case" meaning, it says "senpai-wa mou nete shimatta" -- "senpai has already done gone to sleep / done gone to bed".

As we know, that "shimau, shimatta" gives that "done" meaning.

And that's really the best way to put it in English.

It sounds a bit rustic in English, but there's nothing else in English which I think gives that sense of "shimau, shimatta, chatta" quite as well as "done".

She'd already done gone to bed, it seemed.

"Buyoujin da na": "buyoujin" means literally "not using one's heart", but "heart" here means mind or spirit.

"Youjin" is "care" or "cautiousness"; "buyoujin" is "lack of care" or "lack of cautiousness".

But this particular word "buyoujin" tends to mean lack of cautiousness in relation to criminal or other hostile activity.

So we might say that walking alone in a dangerous place is "buyoujin" or leaving valuables on display in our car is "buyoujin".

And here, leaving her door unlocked at night so anybody could just walk in is "buyoujin".

"Buyoujin da na": "na", as we know, is the particle used for directing a comment at ourself, so she's thinking to herself "buyoujin da" -- it's reckless, dangerous behavior.

"Buyoujin da na, to omotta kanojo-wa": so, she, who was thinking this, "denki-wo tsukete senpai-wo okosou ka to omotta ga".

All right, so this looks a little bit complicated and we still haven't finished the sentence, but let's just take it bit by bit.

First of all she thought "buyoujin" -- "unsafe, dangerous behavior"; "she thought" -- "to omotta kanojo" -- she who thought that, then thought something else; "denki-wo tsukete" -- "tsukeru", of course, is the other-move version of "tsuku", so she thought of switching on the lights; "senpai-wo okosou" -- now, as we know, that "sou" ending is a volitional ending; "okosou ka" -- she thought about taking the action of awakening senpai.

"Okosu" --to "wake someone up"; "okiru", you wake up yourself; "okosu" -- -su endings, as we know, mean other-move verbs, so "okosu" is to wake someone else up.

"Okosou ka" -- so, she's thinking about this action.

The "ka", as we know from another lesson, marks a question, that's to say, a proposition.

So the proposition was taking the action of waking up senpai.

This is what she thought, but... ("ga" -- "but") "senpai-ga kanari yotte ita no-wo omoidashi".

So, "kanari" is another one of those adverbial nouns that can modify a verb or an adjective without the -ni or -to that's usually needed for a noun to modify a verb or an adjective, so "kanari yotte ita" -- "you" is to "be sick or to be drunk", in this case "drunk".

"Kanari" means "sufficiently" or "pretty much" or "very".

So she was pretty drunk, she was in the state of being pretty drunk: "kanari yotte ita no" -- the "no" of course bundles that statement into a noun box -- "no-wo omoidashi" -- "omoidashi" is "remember", so she remembered the fact -- the "no" -- that senpai had been pretty drunk.

"Omoidasu" is "remember"; "omoidashi", once again, as we discussed last week, is the i-stem of "omoidasu" -- "remember" -- and the i-stem here is being used like the te-form to make this clause a part of a compound sentence.

So we have a three-fold compound sentence now.

First of all, we use "ga" -- "but" -- as the connector for the first part, and the second part we're using -shi like the te-form as the connector for the third part, and the third part is "sotto shite oku koto-ni shita".

"Sotto" is another one of these adverbial nouns, meaning "softly, gently or quietly".

"Sotto suru" means to "do softly, gently or quietly".

It's like "shizuka-ni suru", which means to "do quietly".

"Sotto suru" means also to "do quietly", but "shizuka" means more "keep quiet".

You might say this to a class: "Shizuka-ni!" -- "Keep quiet!"

"Sotto suru" is more to "do (something) in a quiet manner".

Now, "shizuka" can be used in that way too, but "sotto suru" means to do something quietly; it can even mean secretly.

"Shizuka" can't mean secretly; "sotto" can mean secretly.

Here it doesn't mean secretly, but it does mean doing something quietly so that someone else won't be aware of you doing it, which is the kind of implication that "sotto" often tends to have.

"Sotto shite oku" -- "shite oku", as we know, is to "put in place an action".

"Oku" means to "place (something)".

Attaching "oke" to the te-form of a verb means putting that action in place.

And, as we know, the textbooks often say it means "doing it in advance" or "doing it in preparation", but actually it means "putting the action in place".

So she's essentially saying here, "do what she has to do, put her action in place, quietly".

"Sotto shite oku koto-ni shita": now, "koto-ni suru", as we've also covered in a previous lesson, means "decide to do".

So this last bit means she decided to put her action quietly into place, literally.

So we've got this whole sentence here: "Buyoujin da na, to omotta kanojo-wa denki-wo tsukete senpai-wo okosou ka to omotta ga senpai-ga kanari yotte ita no-wo omoidashi sotto shite oku koto-ni shita."

So, "'That's dangerous, isn't it, leaving the door open,' she thought; she considered switching the lights on and awakening senpai, but she remembered that senpai had been pretty drunk and so she decided to do what she had to do quietly."

"Makkura-no naka de jibun-no keitai denwa-wo sagashi dasu to" -- "In the pitch darkness -- makkura-no naka de -- jibun-no keitai denwa -- her own telephone -- sagashi dasu".

"Sagashi dasu": "sagasu" as we know, is "search"; "sagashi dasu" is literally "search out", so she sought it out, she found it -- "to".

'''Wasuremono-wo shita no de tori-ni modorimashita --' to hitokoe kakete heya-wo ato-ni shita."

So she said something aloud here, but presumably quite quietly so that she wouldn't wake senpai.

She said: "wasuremono" -- "forgotten thing" -- "-wo shita no de" -- "I did a forgotten thing / I forgot a thing / I left a thing behind" -- "wasuremono-wo shita no de" -- because of that -- "tori-ni modorimashita" --

"I came back to take it / in order to take it, I returned" -- "to hitokoe kakete" -- "koe(-wo) kakeru" is to say something to someone, to engage them in conversation, here "hitokoe" -- she just said that single word, she just said that single voice, literally, she just said that --

"heya-wo ato-ni shita" -- so she just said that, presumably quietly so that senpai wouldn't even hear her, but she felt she ought to say something -- "heya-wo ato-ni shita" -- "ato-ni suru" literally means to "turn it into behind", in other words, put it behind you, in other words, leave -- she left the room -- "heya-wo ato-ni shita" -- she made the room the thing behind her by leaving it.

And that was that for the evening.

Well, she got out of that all right, didn't she?

It was a bit scary, but we didn't hear what happened the next day.

That's what we're going to talk about next week.

If you want to see the whole of this story, go to our friends at Akasic Tails, and I'll put the link right below.

If you want to follow up any of the points that I've made here, I've got a list of them on a page especially for that purpose, and you'll find that in the links below.