Translation help onegai shimasu!

[johanhartman]

I have been studying from a "A Japanese Reader" to improve my writing/reading skills and there is a sentence I am having trouble with translating. The sentence is;

アメリカでは春になると雨がよく降ります。

when translating please give some notes on the "to" particle after "amega yoku" and the "deha" ("dewa"?) after "amerika"
Thank you very much in advance

[Psy]

アメリカでは春になると雨がよく降ります。

Yup, you'd be right, it's dewa. The meaning of the sentence is "In America, it rains a lot in spring," or more literally "talking about in America, once it becomes spring rain falls often." In the words of Peter, let's break it down:

アメリカでは
で as you probably know means a location. は makes a contrast or defines a topic. では just adds the meaning of は to the meaning of で. So アメリカでは "talking about in America."

The next part is 春になると. と in this case is just a direct logical "if/when." If the thing on one side happens, the thing on the other side absolutely will happen... like "when the sun comes up, it gets light out" or "if the egg falls, it will break." In this case, side A is "when it becomes spring."

To say "it rains" in Japanese you literally say "rain falls," or 雨が降る。よく is an adverb meaning "often" or "well." Since adverbs usually show up right before the verb, you say よく降ります。However, because word order (aside from verbs) isn't locked in Japanese, よく雨が降ります is just as correct, though not as common.

Hope that answers your questions. If you have any more trouble, be sure to post here and I or someone else here will be glad to help you.

[Javizy]

Literally translated, the sentence would be "in America, when becomes spring, rain often falls", or more naturally "there is regular rainfall in America during the springtime".

で, in this case, simply marks the location that the action described by the verb (降る) takes place. Here, it represents the English 'in', but it could also mean 'at', such as in 「クラブでかわいい女の子に出会ったよ」"I met a cute girl at the club", or 'with' such as in 「傘で刺されちゃった」"I was stabbed with an umbrella", so it's best not to associate it with an English word, but rather accustom yourself to it through familiarity.

As I'm sure you're aware, は marks the topic of discussion (for an in-depth explanation of は and the differences between は and が, among other things, check out the excellent book 'Making Sense of Japanese' by Jay Rubin). Since America is both the topic and the location of the action it takes both particles では.

と sets up a conditional, which in Japanese can mean either 'if' or 'when' depending on context, and can be done by use of と, ~ば, or ~たら. They are essentially translated the same in English, but the nuances differ in Japanese. と can't be used for suggestions or happenstance, it's more definite so it describes factual conditions or habitual events, so you can see why it is used for describing seasonal changes.

Hopefully this is helpful; posts like this are a good means of review for me at least

[Javizy]

Bah, Psy beat me to it with a more concise explanation

[johanhartman]

thank you both for the speedy and very helpful replies! Just one more question if you will permit... Looking at your translations it is obvious to me that the に　after 春　is the particle marking a point in time; "IN spring". But I cannot figure out what the なる　after that means, can't find it in my dictionary or grammar guide.

[Psy]

Ah, I can see why you're confused but that's not quite the meaning. *something*になる means "becomes something" where に indicates what is becoming. So 春になる is "becomes spring" and not "become in spring." For example 先生になりたい "I want to be[come] a teacher."

A little clearer now?

Great explanation, by the by, Javizy.

[johanhartman]

ありがとう　ございます

[jkeyz15]

the は feels like it can also imply it rains in other places as well. I think here, wa is more of the implied contrast, than the topic of the conversation. Of course the real use of wa, contrast and topic overlap, but yeah...