Particle, honourific and passive problems with I54

[andycarmenjapanese8100]

Intermediate #54:

ごめんください。本日4時から面接をしていただく予定になっている、村上アグネスと申します。
Gomenkudasai. Honjitsu 4 ji kara mensetsu o shite itadaku yotei ni natte iru, Murakami Agunesu to mōshimasu.
Excuse me. I'm Murakami Agnes. I'm supposed to have an interview from 4 o'clock today.

Yuki said in this thread:

1. はい、3番の 窓口 に なります
noun ni narimasu is same as “noun desu”

So "yotei ni natte iru" is like "yotei desu" - "It's an appointment"?

まず、うちの会社に応募されたきっかけは？
Mazu, uchino kaisha ni ōbo sareta kikkake wa?
First, please tell me what prompted you to apply to our company.

oubo suru - subscription; application
kikkake - chance; start; cue; excuse; motive; impetus; occasion

I understand all the words here but why is it passive? Wouldn't "Mazu, uchino kaisha ni oubo shita kikkake wa?" have been correct?

どんなに地味な仕事でも構いません。デザインという仕事を一生懸命勉強したいと思っています。
Donnani jimi na shigoto demo kamaimasen. Dezain to iu shigoto o isshōkenmei benkyō shitai to omotte imasu.
No matter how low-profile a project is, I would do my best. I want to learn a lot about design.

Donnani - how; how much

Literally, "How boring the job is, I don't mind." What does "demo" mean here? I'm used to it meaning "but" however that would need to come after some kind of assertion, such as "the job is boring but..." The first word here is "How boring the job is...." and no definitive statement is made.

Secondly, is "to iu" just emphasis here?

実は、うちの社長はかなり個性的な人物なので…社長との相性が結構大切なのですよ。
Jitsu wa, uchi no shachō wa kanari koseitekina jinbutsu na node... Shachō to no aishō ga kekkō taisetsu na no desu yo.
To tell you the truth, our president is very unique... So, it's very important for employees to get along with our president.

What's this "no"?

[mmmason8967]

Cherry-picking again because it's late...

どんなに地味な仕事でも構いません。デザインという仕事を一生懸命勉強したいと思っています。
Donnani jimi na shigoto demo kamaimasen. Dezain to iu shigoto o isshōkenmei benkyō shitai to omotte imasu.
No matter how low-profile a project is, I would do my best. I want to learn a lot about design.

Donnani - how; how much

Literally, "How boring the job is, I don't mind." What does "demo" mean here? I'm used to it meaning "but" however that would need to come after some kind of assertion, such as "the job is boring but..." The first word here is "How boring the job is...." and no definitive statement is made.

I think it's de working as the te-form of desu and mo working as it often does, which is a lot like wa but with a side-serving of "even" or "even if it's the case". So it's a bit like donnani jimi-na shigoto desu mo, kamaimasen (except that desu isn't correct).

Secondly, is "to iu" just emphasis here?

Would it make more sense if it said dezain no shigoto, meaning "design work"? I'm guessing the answer is "yes", in which case consider the phrase "the idea of democracy": you'd expect to be able to look up "idea" and "democracy" and then construct <democracy-word> no <idea-word>, but it doesn't work. You have to say "the idea called democracy" or <democracy-word> to iu <idea-word>. And that's what I think is happening here.

マイケル

[community.japanese]

マイケルさん、
Thank you for explaining us usual.

Andy san、
So "yotei ni natte iru" is like "yotei desu" - "It's an appointment"?
Yotei desu means I have a plan or I plan to.

I understand all the words here but why is it passive? Wouldn't "Mazu, uchino kaisha ni oubo shita kikkake wa?" have been correct?
The sareru is not passive.
It’s a respectful expression (keigo).
Even though the speaker is a job interviewer, s/he used keigo to the applicant. The reason why is that’ their first time meeting.

The first word here is "How boring the job is...." and no definitive statement is made.
Secondly, is "to iu" just emphasis here?
マイケルさん explained that well.

実は、うちの社長はかなり個性的な人物なので…社長との相性が結構大切なのですよ。
Jitsu wa, uchi no shachō wa kanari koseitekina jinbutsu na node... Shachō to no aishō ga kekkō taisetsu na no desu yo.
To tell you the truth, our president is very unique... So, it's very important for employees to get along with our president.

What's this "no"?
Which no are you refereeing to?

Yuki 　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[mmmason8967]

What's this "no"?

Which no are you refereeing to?

I think you meant "referring". This man is refereeing (この男の人は審判している) ...





This is the no that Andy is referring to:-

実は、うちの社長はかなり個性的な人物なので…社長との相性が結構大切なのですよ。
zitu wa, uti no syatyou wa kanari koseitekina zinbutu na node... syatyou to no aisyou ga kekkou taisetu na no desu yo.

I think that no is defining what kind of aisyou is being described. The core sentence is:-

相性が結構大切なのですよ。
aisyou ga kekkou taisetu na no desu yo.

And then 社長と means "with the president", so adding の makes it into a description:-

社長との相性が結構大切なのですよ。
syatyou to no aisyou ga kekkou taisetu na no desu yo.
with-the-president type-of affinity is very important.

At least, I think that's how it works...

マイケル

[community.japanese]

マイケルさん、

Thank you for pointing out my mistake.
Yes, obviously it’s “referring”.　I am sorry the bad spelling.
I have been thinking about FIFA too mcuh.
Unfortunately, Japan lost the first game…

By the way, that の is a case particle which indicates place, time, position and object and is similar to においてのor における. Therefore, you can replace the の with においての.

Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[mmmason8967]

Thank you for pointing out my mistake.
Yes, obviously it’s “referring”.　I am sorry the bad spelling.

いえ、いえ。私もスペルミスをしました。ワープロローマ字で書きました。ごめん！

By the way, that の is a case particle which indicates place, time, position and object and is similar to においてのor における. Therefore, you can replace the の with においての.

そうですか。興味深いですよね。

マイケル

[community.japanese]

マイケルさん、
そうですね。興味深いですね。
Yuki 　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[andycarmenjapanese8100]

Cherry-picking again because it's late...

どんなに地味な仕事でも構いません。デザインという仕事を一生懸命勉強したいと思っています。
Donnani jimi na shigoto demo kamaimasen. Dezain to iu shigoto o isshōkenmei benkyō shitai to omotte imasu.
No matter how low-profile a project is, I would do my best. I want to learn a lot about design.

Donnani - how; how much

Literally, "How boring the job is, I don't mind." What does "demo" mean here? I'm used to it meaning "but" however that would need to come after some kind of assertion, such as "the job is boring but..." The first word here is "How boring the job is...." and no definitive statement is made.

I think it's de working as the te-form of desu and mo working as it often does, which is a lot like wa but with a side-serving of "even" or "even if it's the case". So it's a bit like donnani jimi-na shigoto desu mo, kamaimasen (except that desu isn't correct).

Great!

Secondly, is "to iu" just emphasis here?

Would it make more sense if it said dezain no shigoto, meaning "design work"? I'm guessing the answer is "yes", in which case consider the phrase "the idea of democracy": you'd expect to be able to look up "idea" and "democracy" and then construct <democracy-word> no <idea-word>, but it doesn't work. You have to say "the idea called democracy" or <democracy-word> to iu <idea-word>. And that's what I think is happening here.

マイケル

So if we're loosely translating it to English... "Dezain to iu shigoto" - "the job of design"? Great.

実は、うちの社長はかなり個性的な人物なので…社長との相性が結構大切なのですよ。
zitu wa, uti no syatyou wa kanari koseitekina zinbutu na node... syatyou to no aisyou ga kekkou taisetu na no desu yo.

I think that no is defining what kind of aisyou is being described. The core sentence is:-

相性が結構大切なのですよ。
aisyou ga kekkou taisetu na no desu yo.

And then 社長と means "with the president", so adding の makes it into a description:-

社長との相性が結構大切なのですよ。
syatyou to no aisyou ga kekkou taisetu na no desu yo.
with-the-president type-of affinity is very important.

At least, I think that's how it works...

マイケル

That's the first I've heard of this. Which site/book did you read that said "no" can be used as "type of"? Does this structure have a name? Can you link me to anything?

You say that "I think that no is defining what kind of aishou is being described" but it doesn't define what type of "aishou" it is. I gave the full quote and that's it. I don't really understand what you said, sorry.

[mmmason8967]

That's the first I've heard of this. Which site/book did you read that said "no" can be used as "type of"? Does this structure have a name? Can you link me to anything?

It's really only the way I've come to think that no works. The 'type-of' is just a kind of shorthand: essentially I think that when you use A no B, you're saying that B belongs to some category A or, to put it another way, B is of general type A.

The possessive is really just a kind of categorisation. watashi-no hon is a book that is in category "mine" and kimi-no hon is one that is in category "yours". The similar-looking toyota-no kuruma isn't really possessive; it's saying the car belongs to the category "made by Toyota". Although I guess you could push the point and see it as (kind-of, sort-of) "Toyota's car". I don't think you can do that with, say, kamisan-no rinda; this introduces a person called Linda and tells you that Linda is my wife or, to put it another way, Linda belongs to the (very small) category kamisan.

You say that "I think that no is defining what kind of aishou is being described" but it doesn't define what type of "aishou" it is. I gave the full quote and that's it. I don't really understand what you said, sorry.

Since Yuki-sensei gave a much more grammatically rigorous (and more accurate) explanation of the phrase, explaining what I meant is a bit redundant.

マイケル

[andycarmenjapanese8100]

That's the first I've heard of this. Which site/book did you read that said "no" can be used as "type of"? Does this structure have a name? Can you link me to anything?

It's really only the way I've come to think that no works. The 'type-of' is just a kind of shorthand: essentially I think that when you use A no B, you're saying that B belongs to some category A or, to put it another way, B is of general type A.

The possessive is really just a kind of categorisation. watashi-no hon is a book that is in category "mine" and kimi-no hon is one that is in category "yours". The similar-looking toyota-no kuruma isn't really possessive; it's saying the car belongs to the category "made by Toyota". Although I guess you could push the point and see it as (kind-of, sort-of) "Toyota's car". I don't think you can do that with, say, kamisan-no rinda; this introduces a person called Linda and tells you that Linda is my wife or, to put it another way, Linda belongs to the (very small) category kamisan.

You say that "I think that no is defining what kind of aishou is being described" but it doesn't define what type of "aishou" it is. I gave the full quote and that's it. I don't really understand what you said, sorry.

Since Yuki-sensei gave a much more grammatically rigorous (and more accurate) explanation of the phrase, explaining what I meant is a bit redundant.

マイケル

I didn't understand her either. "Shachō to ni oite no aishō ga kekkō taisetsu na no desu yo" is equally baffling, if not moreso, since now there's also a verb in there which also doesn't seem to fit.

A Japanese friend on Skype told me that "anata" was omitted before the "no". That seems to fix the problem.

[community.japanese]

Andy san and マイケルさん

I am sorry for the late reply.

社長との相性が結構大切なのですよ
As Andy san’s friend said if you put “someone’ between と and の, it might be easy to understand.

It’s like “compatibility between our president and other people (you)”.


Yuki 　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com