Hello everyone :)

I’ve been translating an interview and I came across some things that caused me some problems.
If you could take a look and help me with those, I’d be really grateful :)

( here they are )

http://www.jgram.org/pages/viewOne.php?tagE=ano

あの (ano)

    Meaning: that
    Example: あの人

  [ View this entry online ]

  Notes:  
Both あの and その can be used with the meaning ‘that ‾’ when an item you are referring to is not in sight. あの is used when both the speaker and the hearer are (or are assumed to be) familiar with a person or thing in question.
ex: ano kanojou no namae wa yumi da.
trans: that girl's name is yumi.


  Examples:  
Note: visit WWWJDIC to lookup any unknown words found in the example(s)...
Alternatively, view this page on POPjisyo.com or Rikai.com

• Sorosoro ano densha ga demasu.   [ex #6192]
The train over there is almost leaving.

• Watashi wa ano kuruma ga suki desu.   [ex #6193]
I like that car over there.

• Ano hito wa watashi no otousan desu.   [ex #6194]
That person over there is my father.

Help JGram by picking and editing examples!!

• Search big database for more examples of あの
  
• Add an example sentence
  
• Detailed example form

</ul>
  Comments:  

• In note contributed by jeina419, kanojou should be kanojo かのじょ　彼女 (contributor: Miki)
  
• Is this JLPT level 3? I guess this is level 4. (contributor: Miki)
  
• I thought that kanojou should be kanojyo in "normal" romanji? (contributor: walter)
  
• ex 6194: Wouldn't the use of お父さん mean that　わたしの is redundant? (contributor: walter)
  
• In response to walter's questions:
  -There are several ways of Romanizing Japanese. Depending on the system you use, かのじょ could be either 'kanojo' or 'kanojyo'. Miki's point is that it's not 'kanojou' because there's no う on the end.
  -As for the second question...
  ...first off, you can use お父さん to talk about other people's fathers:
  みちこのお父さんは親切です。 - Michiko's father is kind.
  ...and secondly, if you're being formal (which the example seems to be), you'd normally us 父 (ちち) to refer to your own father. But that's not stopping anyone in more casual speech, though I think there's a tendency to drop the お in that case:
  父さんに部屋を掃除させられちゃった…
  I got forced to clean my room by my dad... (contributor: KWhazit)
  
• I think this is more vocabulary than Grammar and its definatly level 4 (contributor: tigert)
  
  [ Add a Comment ]
  

What do you suppose Alfred Hitchcock would make of this?



Those guys look like they're praying. Maybe every day they have to kneel and pray facing the wiener.

I ended up not walking to Tim's yesterday because I couldn't get him on the phone--I'm walking there to-day. So I ended up just working on my comic yesterday--I've got four pages finished and I've already pencilled one to-day. I'll ink it when I get back from Tim's, so I'm not doing so bad. It's a shame I don't have Howard Stern to listen to while I ink and colour though, and no new DVD commentaries. I'll probably end up listening to The Bell Jar again. I do have a lot of Lenny Bruce to listen to, too.

I signed on to World of Warcraft very briefly last night looking for Tim. I found an item I'd put up for auction on Monday had sold for 150 gold. It was some kind of leather cuirass much weaker than what I'm wearing but Tim told me it was very valuable because it was the sort people used for "twinking", a concept Tim explained to me but which I still completely don't comprehend. It had something to do with "level brackets". Anyway, that's a hell of a lot of gold for something I have no use for. If this were Warcraft II, I could build some farms now. Maybe even a watchtower.

It's too bad I can't make money like that from my old shirts in real life.

My tweets from last night;

Feline suits withhold sleep in a briefcase.
Someone's got to negotiate with them.
My lack of REM is infecting the base.
Let Keith David or Wilford Brimley in.

Little reference to John Carpenter's The Thing for the ultra hip out there.

The spider in my bathroom last night;

Hi everyone!
Recently I've been reading through some notes on the passive form, and while I understand most of it, some questions have been bugging me - I tried searching it up on the net, but I haven't been able to get any conclusive answer. :(

(1) Are there any passive forms for the stative verbs いる、ある etc? As in, do they conjugate to become いられる、あわれる etc? If they exist, how are they used, i.e. what are their equivalents in English?
The latter sounds abit weird (I've never heard anything that sounds like あわれる before)... but I've definitely heard of いられる before, although it could very possibly be the potential form of いる, I guess.

(2) I was watching Last Friends, and this sentence popped up: そういうことを、しないでいられる人になって
To put it into context, because that sentence was part of a longer paragaph, this is the full speech spoken by the character:
    私とずっと一緒にいたくても、仕事場の前で待ったり、
　マンションの前で待ったり、
　友達を待ち伏せてつけたり。
　そういうことを、しないでいられる人になって。
I don't quite understand the phrase しないでいられる; why did she choose to add the verb いられる behind the negative verb しない? I understand from subtitles that she's trying to say "... become someone who doesn't do such things", so wouldn't the phrase そういうことを、 しない人になって suffice to convey her meaning? Or does the addition of the verb いられる serve an added function?

Thanks for all the help in advance! :)

Yesterday, I killed a loaf of bread. Such was my anger, and such was the nature of the day. A shitty, shitty day, but the loaf of bread had done nothing. It was a little stale, sure, but aren't we all? Spooky's buried all evidence in the trash.

Turns out, on July 10th, some cisgendered, homophobic snot at Readercon was twatting rude little missives about my person (that's only one thing that led to yesterday being a shitty day). Hashtag #readercon. You can probably find him, if you try. He consistently misspelled my name as "Kaitlin." I'm still debating whether or not to unleash the flying monkeys upon his sorry ass. Whether or not to call him out. A loaf of bread has already died for his sins. Oh, and he also complained about Chip Delany reading "raunchy gay PORN." Ignorance and hatred and fear are the roots of all evil, if there actually is evil in the world. Blessed are the narrow-minded shit weasels.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,086 words on a new vignette. An erotic vignette that begins with a discourse on 4th-dimensional geometry, tesseracts, orthogonality, three-dimensional shadows, and so forth. Truly, I write smut for nerds. Right now, the piece is called "Vicaria Draconis" (thank you, sovay). And I could finish it today, I suspect, only it's so bloody hot in the house, and I'm still a bit too angry to make the doughnuts.

We hit a fairly serious last-minute snag yesterday, as regards the book trailer, and right now, we're scrambling to sort it all out.

Also, I'm pulling out whatever stops I can pull for promotion. We're going to have Red Tree fliers up on the website soon (they were out at Readercon), that can be printed from your computer and distributed wherever seems appropriate. We're talking posse, street team, etc. I've also begun a contest. Send me tree photos, any tree, anywhere, and my favorite gets a free, signed copy of the novel. Email photos to greygirlbeast(at)gmail(dot)com, naturally. Now, I would much prefer you take these photos yourself, and not snurch them off the interwebs, please. They may be posted on the website, and I'd prefer not to violate someone else's copyright. We're also talking stickers, because any good posse needs to be able to deface public property and restroom stalls and so forth.

And there's the ongoing auctions.

I don't think I can sit here, baking in the heat all day. It's ten degrees (F) cooler outside than inside.

I want to say, "Read the Tree," but Danielewski beat me to that one. This posse needs it own slogan. "Feed the Tree"? Yeah, I know it's from a Belly song, but so was Low Red Moon

One-line review at welltemperedwri.

Also, beer with your movie? AWESOME. Thanks for the recommendation, guys.

Last night's tweets;

No trash can is ever truly empty.
Tall spiders supervise waste disposal.
They have me take outside bags from my tea.
Cat pace cars monitor the proposal.

Even less sleep to-day than yesterday. Lots of noises around the house starting at the crack of dawn, which would be about an hour after I fell asleep. So I drew half a page, but I think I'll save the rest for to-morrow, maybe walk to Tim's to-night, then try to get to sleep early.

New Haruhi Suzumiya this morning--still in the time loop plot. Of course, the interesting thing is looking for the differences in each episode, one of the biggest being the different animation studios employed for each episode--it's an illuminating look at how different studios work, and I have a suspicion each studio was instructed not to look at the others' work;












It adds to the eeriness of the story arc, the feeling that everything's the same but not quite. This latest one focused more on Koizumi for some reason--not giving him any more lines of dialogue, or even fundamentally changing his reactions to things. He just has more animation, his clothes stand out a bit more. It's an interesting exploration of camera created POV, too-Haruhi Suzumiya's a shounen series, so there's always going to be a lot of shots focusing on attractive female bodies, but, I think it was the second episode in the cycle ramped that it up slightly. Another episode played around with high contrast lighting a bit more. This newest one goes from an overt dread in the previous episode to seemingly making the characters comfortable with this dread. It's strong and disturbing deja vu for the characters, but they seem to have somehow become comfortable with it.

And, of course, each time one looks for clues as to how Kyon is supposed to finally break the cycle. There's some suggestion that he needs to express affection for Haruhi, maybe ask her on a date. But my prediction is that Kyon simply needs to do his summer homework--every episode ends with Kyon figuring he'll just avoid the schoolwork since he's stuck in a time loop anyway. I'm kind of hoping I'm wrong with this prediction. But I love the whole atmosphere of inertia, anyway.

And it's produced the only anime fan vids I can remember liking;

Good night, Walter Cronkite.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/us/18cronkite.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Hey everyone! Can anyone tell me what this sentence mean, please?
Thanks a lot!!!

これからも私のために作曲し続けてほしい.
After that, please continue to compose for my sake? (don't get it *dumb*)

I'm almost there but not exactly. Please help. Thanks

Yesterday, I went to a public art performance in Seattle's Camp Long as part of my quest to enjoy as much public art as I could this summer. It's funny when at the entrance to the art show they have wine and bug spray because you might want some of either.

The general genre of the performance art were:
- unfolding
- dance
- pitchshifted

The overall piece was a metaphor for the water supply of seattle and its gradual improvement over time. All pieces in the series are a metaphor for that, as it's funded by our public utility agency.

There were several sorts of pitchshifted and slightly circuitbent devices used as accompaniment to the dance, and the dance was one of those where the artist starts wrapped in something and the whole dance is spent with the artist working her way free of it. That's a relatively common visual metaphor for overcoming or struggling towards freedom in performance art.

In general, this piece wouldn't have worked well on a stage but in the setting of camp long's forest canopy by a pond and alongside a stream it worked really well. The webby stuff in the trees is still there and will be for a couple of weeks. It's crocheted and was put together at a series public workshops that friends of mine went to. So far as I can tell, it's about 100 yards long.

This was a pretty great piece. Although a lot of the elements of the actual performance were very much standard (the unwinding) or in line with current fad (the circuitbending), it was a great time. It would have been a sublime transporting experience if not for the kids in the audience, who changed the experience into something more dynamic by acting as a sort of antiphon to the droning music.

Also, some ducks came by to investigate and were quacking at the audience. That was also great.

Mr. Darcy and I went to Stellar for a late lunch.

They have this poster on the wall, which for some reason always cracks me up:

I bought it a couple of months ago in the hope that having a phone with a lot of on-board memory, some Java muscle, and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard might spur me to write my Scrabble dictionary and quiz app, the one I have been putting off working on for over a year. ( Read more... )

I do hearby declare it beer o'clock.

http://www.jgram.org/pages/viewOne.php?tagE=doushite

どうして (doushite)

    Meaning: why?, what for?
    Example: Why didn't you come?

  [ View this entry online ]

  Notes:  
どうして　must end with んです　instead of まです　form


  Examples:  
Note: visit WWWJDIC to lookup any unknown words found in the example(s)...
Alternatively, view this page on POPjisyo.com or Rikai.com

• どうしてそんなことが起こったのか。[ doushite sonna koto ga okotta no ka. ]   [ex #785]
How did such a thing come about?

• どうして来なかったのですか。[doushite konakatta no desu ka. ]   [ex #786]
Why didn't you come?

• どうしてこんなに暑いのですか。   [ex #4785]
Why is it so hot?

• どうしてそんなに怒っているの。   [ex #4786]
Why are you so angry?

Help JGram by picking and editing examples!!

• Search big database for more examples of どうして
  
• Add an example sentence
  
• Detailed example form

</ul>
  Comments:  

• Japanese is awkward.
  どうして来ないのですか。
  Why don't you come?
  どうして来るのですか。招待していなのに。
  Why do you come? (contributor: Miki)
  
• Do you know「来る」カ行変格活用? (contributor: Miki)
  
• →Kuru's 'ka' line conjugation? ;-)
  -ve くる→こない (contributor: Amatuka)
  
• I don't know if it help you lean 来る conjugation. It is also said to be カ行の三段 in a dictionary but I leant as カ行変格活用 at school as a child.
  「こ・き・くる・くる・くれ・こい」
  来ない・来ます・来る。・来るとき・来れば・来い！ (contributor: Miki)
  
• See the meaning of どう at "ka dou ka." (contributor: bamboo4)
  
• which is here kadouka (contributor: dc)
  
• どうして来るのですか。招待していなのに。
  Why do you come?
  
  The above is rather ambiguous. The English translation should be "Why do you want to come,even when not invited."
  
  Besides, the expression is pretty rude. Consider: どうしてお出でになりたいのですか、ご招待申しあげてもいませんのに. (contributor: bamboo4)
  
• bamboo
  
  I have never said "why do you want to come, even when not invited" in my entire life. (native English speaker)
  
  A natural translation would be "Why are you coming? I didn`t invite you."
  
  English is a little more direct than Japanese. translating a phrase word for word never sounds natural. (contributor: tigert)
  
  [ Add a Comment ]
  

This question is primarily aimed at the native Japanese speakers of this community.

When you hear a girl refer to herself using 僕 what sort of impression does it give you of her?

So, first off, I am announcing that the re-relaunch of the website occurred last night. This is, of course, a preface to the re-re-relaunch that comes along later. But I'm getting ahead of myself. My great thanks to Christopher Simmons (scarletboi), who was on the phone with us after 1 a.m. last night, getting everything just right. So, yes, it's very much focused on The Red Tree (and if you've not already pre-ordered the novel, today's your chance).

I think summer has finally arrived in Providence. It's actually hot in the house. I think I'm actually sweating.

And for some reason I have been tweeting and whatever it is one does over at Facebook (booking?) about my very small tail this morning, which is evidence, at the very least, that I am not exactly awake.

Today, I begin work on a new vignette for Sirenia Digest #44. When it's done, I stop and, belatedly, get the book trailer done, and then I have to write the second vignette for Sirenia Digest #44. I have only 14 days to get all these things (and various others) done. Then, for my next trick, I shall pull something intelligent from Sarah Palin's mouth.

And speaking of magic, yesterday we saw David Yates' Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. This was one of my favorite books of the series, my last favorite book of the series, and I think Yates more than does it justice. He has corrected many of the odd twitches and unfortunate shortcomings of J.K. Rowling's novel. Yes, there are important things that get skipped over, but gods, this is a 2.5 hour film made from a 652-page novel (that could have been at least 200 pages shorter, by the way). Myself, I find the idea of adapting a novel of that size into a screenplay an utterly terrifying proposition. If I ever adapt a novel for the screen, it will be a short novel. Anyway, the film manages a wonderful sort of majesty, and gives to the characters a dignity that I'm not sure is present in the book. The cinematography and art direction are exquisite, and I was especially impressed with the film's pacing. Despite having such a vast tale to tell, the director takes the time not to rush from plot point to plot point. Some very fine performances, especially from Jim Broadbent, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman (swoon), Helena Bonham Carter, and Tom Felton. Yes, this film actually manged to make me care about Draco Malfoy. Indeed, one of the most delightful aspects of this film is the way it has managed to imbue the characters with a sort of humanity and depth they have often lacked, both in the novels and in earlier films. It's just splendid, and I strongly recommend it. Seeing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I now have some hope that Yates, in the last two films, may discover a fitting ending to this story, which I don't think Rowling managed to do. Sadly, poor Daniel Radcliffe remains as dull as dishwater, but it's a problem inherent in his role. Surely, Harry is one of the least interesting protagonists in the history of fantasy, surrounded by infinitely more interesting and charismatic characters.

Not much else to yesterday, really. Except that I seem to have discovered that the only two novels I want to read (or be read from) these days are House of Leaves and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

Oh, and the car's acting up, and has to go into the garage today, so we will not be joining readingthedark for the VNV Nation show in Boston tonight. But I think I do get to join sovay and ericmvan for Birdsongs of the Mesozoic on Thursday.

If you've not already, please do have a look at the current eBay auctions, the proceeds of which are going towards production costs for The Red Tree trailer. Thanks.

And I think that's all for now. Hope you find the new website intriguing. I've become obsessed with the analytics thing that Chris set up for me, allowing me to track who is looking at the page and from where and how often and so on and so forth.

Time to make the doughnuts.....

Hey, Meghan, could you make up your goddamn mind?

"'Homophobia is the last socially accepted prejudice,' McCain says, repeating it for emphasis."

I'm sure Sonia Sotomayor totally agrees with you.

Facebook could be using your photos for ads. Thanks to complicittheory for the heads up. The story itself is kind of funny.

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/07/16/facebook-sez-dont-mind-us-were-just-whoring-out-your-photos/