自分の花見

[thegooseking]

みんなさん、おはよう、

I was going to put this in the practice section, but I have some questions about it that are probably better suited to this section.

今日は、私は家に出て、雪が降っていたと思った。しかし、私は降っていた雪じゃなくて桜だったに気がついた。家は桜の下に古い石臼がある。だから、私は石臼に座って、桜が降っているのを見た。風の音も川の音もとりの歌の音も木製の風鈴の優しい衝撃の音を聞こえた。うってつけに静かな瞬間でした。

日本国に花見に行きたいんですが、スコットランドに自分の花見もとても素敵でした。

In the first sentence, I want to say "I left the house and thought it was snowing", but I think what I've actually said might be, "I thought I left the house and it was snowing". There is no doubt about whether or not I actually left the house. Does と思う generally apply to a single clause, or the whole sentence, and is there any way to distinguish between the two?

In the second sentence, I wasn't sure about the て form of じゃない. Is じゃなくて right? I was thinking it might be じゃないで, as in じゃない plus the て form of です. Moreover, I know that the て form is often translated as 'and', but can it mean 'but' in a case like this?

Also in the second sentence, I'm a bit confused about tenses. In English it would be "It was not snow that was falling, but cherry blossoms." But in Japanese, should I use the past tense for the descriptive relative clause 降っていた? And would this be better written as 降っていた何が雪じゃなくて桜だった? (I.e. "What was falling was not snow, but cherry blossoms.") Or 降っていたもの…? ("The thing that was falling...")

When I'm describing what I could hear, do I have to put の音 after everything? Or maybe "have to" is the wrong term. I assume that 音 would be implied with a verb like 聞く, but what I mean is, can I list the things and then say "the sound of all these things" rather than specifying "the sound of" each one?　(I actually quite like saying "the sound of" each one. The repetition is kind of evocative of the sounds themselves in a poetic kind of way, but I have curiosity about grammar!)

よろしくおねがいします、
小狼

[mmmason8967]

みんなさん、おはよう、

Let's get the nit-picking out of the way: it's みんな or みなさん but never みんなさん.

In the second sentence, I wasn't sure about the て form of じゃない. Is じゃなくて right? I was thinking it might be じゃないで, as in じゃない plus the て form of です. Moreover, I know that the て form is often translated as 'and', but can it mean 'but' in a case like this?

You're right: it's じゃなくて. Because じゃない is a contraction of ではない, which is a thinly-disguised negative of the literary である. I suspect (but don't know for sure) that です doesn't actually have a negative form so you're forced to use である instead. And for some reason it always seems to appear with either は or も between the で and the ある (for example, 何でもない). But I'm woffling: it's ある　→　ない　→　なくて, exactly as you thought.

マイケル

[mmmason8967]

Moreover, I know that the て form is often translated as 'and', but can it mean 'but' in a case like this?

Yes, I think so. Actually, I think that negative-te followed by non-negative is really saying something like "it's not X, it's Y", so by the time you translate it into English it's quite likely to acquire a "but" to make the sentence flow better. I'm not sure you can claim the original Japanese has a definite "but" in it, but I'm pretty sure that "but" is a better choice than "and".

マイケル

[community.japanese]

マイケルさん、
どうもありがとうございます。
そうですね。
みんなさん is a common mistake.


小狼さん、

Such a beautiful moment! Do you have cherry trees around your house?
The writing is great!

My suggestions are below.


今日は、私は家に出て、雪が降っていたと思った。
The sentence should be
今日、家を出て、雪が降っていると思った。
You can say今日は but without は sounds more formal and is appropriate the register you used.
You also can say 私は however, the writing is like a diary entry and the ending has と思った which indicates the writer’s thought.
Therefore, you don’t need to say 私は and it’s more natural in the Japanese writing.

しかし、私は降っていた雪じゃなくて桜だったに気がついた。
The sentence should be
しかし、私は降っている（or降っていた）のは雪ではなくて、桜だったことに気づいた。
However, I realized it’s not snow but cherry flowers.
じゃなくて is fine here same as ではなくて.
The problem is 桜だった before に, because you have to put a noun before に.
Please nominalize that.

家は桜の下に古い石臼がある。
Umm…it’s a bit hard to understand what you want to say.

Your house has a stone mullet under cherry tree???

だから、私は石 臼に座って、桜が降っているのを見た。
Correct! Great!


風の音も川の音もとりの歌の音も木製の風鈴の優しい衝撃の音を聞こえた。

とりの歌の音 is grammatically ok however, Japanese people tend to use 声 for birds.

Do you have a wooden wind-bell? I think they should be made from ceramic or metal… otherwise it doesn’t sound. But I could be wrong.

衝撃 actually means “a shock or an impact”.
It’s used like
衝突の衝撃で彼はオートバイから投げ出された。
The impact of the collision threw him off the motorcycle.

彼の発表は政界に衝撃の波を起こした。
His announcement sent shock waves through the political world.

聞こえた is potential form so particle が should be use however, you listed various sounds so も is better here.
So the I recommend you to say

風の音も川の音も鳥の歌の声も陶製or鉄製の風鈴の優しい音も聞こえた。

うってつけに静かな瞬間でした。
What does　うってつけ mean?

うってつけ is used like

キャンプにうってつけの場所
an ideal place for camping

これは君にとってうってつけの仕事だ。
This is the perfect job for you.

What isうってつけ for here? You?
If it’s for you, the sentence should be 私にとってうってつけに静かな瞬間でした。

日本国に花見に行きたいんですが、スコットランドに自分の花見もとても素敵でした。
There are small particle mistakes and you don’t need to use 国after 日本.
日本国に花見に行きたいんですが、スコットランドでの自分の花見がとても素敵でした。

Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[mmmason8967]

家は桜の下に古い石臼がある。

Umm…it’s a bit hard to understand what you want to say.

Your house has a stone mullet under cherry tree???

「stone mullet」じゃなくて、「millstone」です。そう思います。

「millstone」は大きくて重くて丸い石です。

マイケル

[community.japanese]

マイケルさん、
どうもありがとうございます。
分かりました。
In that case 家の桜の木の下の石臼がある。
Yuki 　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[thegooseking]

由紀先生とマイケルさんともにありがとうございます。

That helped a lot.

I can see that 桜の木 is clearer, but I'm confused as to why it would be の下の and not の下に.

小狼

[mmmason8967]

I'm confused as to why it would be の下の and not の下に.

Me too. The structure is a simple sentence (石臼がある), and then 石臼 is modified by a long adjective (家の桜の木の下の). Like you, I would have expected a long location (家の桜の木の下に). Perhaps it suggests that the stone belongs there (as opposed to the stone just happening to be there).

Also, I thought you weren't supposed to use の more than three times in a row? Maybe the one in 桜の木 doesn't count, though. As I understand it, it's because a long sequence of の is hard to follow, like someone talking about "My wife's brother's neighbour's grandson's dog"; you know they're talking about somebody's dog but you can't really work out whose dog it is.

マイケル

[community.japanese]

小狼さん、マイケルさん、
家の桜の木下にある石臼＝家の桜の下の石臼
どちらも大丈夫です。
My wife's brother's neighbour's grandson's dog　は [私の妻の兄弟の近所の人の孫息子さんの犬] ですね。
Yuki　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[thegooseking]

みなさん、

I think I must have heard みんなさん not as a 'mistake', but as someone intentionally getting it wrong to try to sound cute. I guess "cute Japanese" has a lot of getting things a little bit wrong on purpose. But I was not attempting to sound cute, so that's good to know.

This is what I meant by 木製の風鈴. I wasn't even sure about calling them wind chimes (since they don't 'chime') in English, so I'm even less sure about calling them 風鈴 in Japanese, since 鈴 means 'bell', which also isn't quite right. But I also don't know what else to call them. Like wind chimes, the wind blows them and they knock into each other, but the sound they make is different.



よろしくおねがいします、
小狼

[community.japanese]

小狼さん、

そうですね。Japanese native speaker create slang but they know that is slang…

Regarding 風鈴, I could not image the bell in the picture.
Yes it’s 木製の風鈴.
Thank you for the picture.

Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[mmmason8967]

I think I must have heard みんなさん not as a 'mistake', but as someone intentionally getting it wrong to try to sound cute. I guess "cute Japanese" has a lot of getting things a little bit wrong on purpose. But I was not attempting to sound cute, so that's good to know.

Apparently みんなさん got added to WWWJDIC quite a long time ago as a valid reading for 皆さん and, since almost all online Japanese-English resources rely on WWWJDIC in one way or another, you now find it everywhere. The only way you're likely to find out it's wrong is if you use it and somebody picks you up on it (see if you can guess how I found out). It's one trivial mistake that I think is worth pointing out when you see it, simply because it's so plausible and the other person isn't going to discover it's wrong by checking in the usual places.

マイケル

[community.japanese]

マイケルさん、

Thank you for the useful comment.
そうですね。
皆さんで教え合えたらいいですね。

Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[thegooseking]

マイケルさん、由紀先生、

Yes, WWWJDIC is quite comprehensive, which is both its strength and its weakness. It includes a lot of things that wouldn't normally be used in Japanese, but might be used sometimes, on rare occasions. It does actually note みんなさん as irregular kana usage, but the only way to know that is to go to the Dictionary Codes page and look up what the abbreviation 'ik' actually means. It isn't entirely clear at first glance.

But I think the main problem is with using WWWJDIC in a way that it's not meant to be used. It is a one-directional Japanese to English (or Japanese to other languages) dictionary. It can (with some difficulty) be used as an English to Japanese dictionary, but it's certainly not meant to be used that way (I only use it that way if I can't find the term in my paper dictionary, or to look at the examples if I'm unsure how a word is meant to be used). It's meant to be an aid to reading and understanding Japanese; not to speaking and writing it.

小狼

[community.japanese]

小狼さん、
わかりました。If dictionaries said, learners trust them basically…．
If you have questions, please feel free to ask us.
Yuki　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com