Lower Intermediate 9: Grammar help

[watermen]

彼女は自分の誕生日と君の誕生日を使ったらしい。

The PDF translation is: I heard that she played her birthday and you birthday.

What I don't understand is the term 使ったらしい? What is he trying to get at this sentence.

Thanks

[Javizy]

「使った」is the past tense of 'to use', and「らしい」marks hearsay or supposition at the end of a clause, 'I heard that/it seems that', in a similar way to「そうだ」. So, he's simply saying 'I heard that she used...'.

[watermen]

「使った」is the past tense of 'to use', and「らしい」marks hearsay or supposition at the end of a clause, 'I heard that/it seems that', in a similar way to「そうだ」. So, he's simply saying 'I heard that she used...'.

That is the real question, what is the sentenced trying to mean? Used her birthday and his birthday? Does not make sense to me?

[Javizy]

The 'Grammar' in the thread title kind of three me off. It means she used the numbers of their birthdays (usually the day) for two of her lottery numbers, so if they were 23/07/1985 and 17/02/1984, she would have used 23 and 17. It's a common practice in the UK and US as well, although I use a random number generator (aka lucky dip) instead

[jkeyz15]

"lucky dip" .....never heard of that before. Must be one of those English dialect words (or I'm just retarded). It kind of makes sense though.

[Javizy]

"lucky dip" .....never heard of that before. Must be one of those English dialect words (or I'm just retarded). It kind of makes sense though.

It's an option you have when you buy your ticket, the numbers are printed out randomly for you. "Lucky Dip" is just a name they gave it for marketing, it's not a dialect/slang thing or anything like that.

I suppose I negligibly lengthen my odds of winning by not playing the same numbers every time, but I can just imagine forgetting to do it one week and my numbers coming up, so lucky dips are like a security thing

[jkeyz15]

Well it could also just be that I'm a minor! I can't participate in the lottery. I've never even seen a lottery ticket close enough to read it.

[watermen]

皆さん、どうも、ありがとうございます。今、分かります。

[Psy]

I continually find it fascinating to see how important context is to the lone Japanese sentence.

[Javizy]

I continually find it fascinating to see how important context is to the lone Japanese sentence.

I wouldn't have had much of a clue about most of watermen's threads lately if I didn't remember the lessons so well

[watermen]

I continually find it fascinating to see how important context is to the lone Japanese sentence.

I wouldn't have had much of a clue about most of watermen's threads lately if I didn't remember the lessons so well

Well, I can't post the whole lesson here, that is like copying the whole PDF to the forum, not sure if Jpod101 allows that?

[NickT]

Lucky dip is a well known phrase in British English. I'm not sure of the exact etymology, but it predates the national lottery by a long way. I suspect it has something to do with carnival’s, where you often win a prize, but you don't know what the prize will be until you stick your hand into a bucket or some other container and pull out a prize at random.

It may be a well known phrase in other parts of the world, too, I don't know, but it is definitely a well known phrase in the UK that any English person would understand.

Back to the original Japanese phrase. It threw me out of context, but when you know it is referring to lottery numbers it makes perfect sense and I would say the exact same thing in English:

"I used mine and my girlfriend’s birthdays as my lottery numbers"

Or, in this case:

"I heard that she used her birthday and your birthday (as her lottery numbers, which by the way won the top prize."

[Javizy]

I continually find it fascinating to see how important context is to the lone Japanese sentence.

I wouldn't have had much of a clue about most of watermen's threads lately if I didn't remember the lessons so well

Well, I can't post the whole lesson here, that is like copying the whole PDF to the forum, not sure if Jpod101 allows that?

The easiest way to give the context is to explain it; a load of unnecessary dialogue would only complicate things. In this case, something like 'the guy is talking about his friend's girlfriend winning the lottery' would have been plenty. Just something to keep in mind for the benefit of people who don't know the Jpod catalogue as well as I do