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期待が伺える

lanthas

 
27 Apr 2014
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I'm reading an article on 朝日学生 as practice - it's about the recent Nobel physics prize that was awarded to three Japanese scientists for the invention of the blue LED. I was able to understand almost all of it, just the last sentence is giving me a headache :)

For context, the preceding sentence: 政府は20年までにすべての照明をLEDにすることをめざしています。

Then: 今回の授賞理由でも「電気を気軽に使えない世界15億人の生活の質を高めるだろう」と評価され、世界的な広がりへの期待もうかがえます。

My attempt at translating:

The government is aiming to replace all lighting by LED's by the year 2020. Taking also into account the reason for receiving this prize, it is expected that this will be valued (people will say that the life quality of the 1.5 billion people in the world who cannot use electricity freely should improve) and that this will become a worldwide trend.

My main concerns are with the subject and object of 評価される, and the meaning of 期待も伺える. I have a feeling that the latter is idiomatic ("being able to visit/hear/ask an expectation" sounds strange), but I wasn't able to find an explanation for it.

Could someone check my translation and confirm the meaning of 期待が伺える?
よろしくお願いします。
 
I think 授賞理由でも = in the reasons given for awarding the prize (i.e. what follows is a translation from or paraphrase of information provided by the Nobel committee, possibly from this).

Note the と in 「」評価され. This combo of quote + と + passive verb can be used describe that something or someone is seen/viewed/assessed/recognised/etc as "quote", by a third party or people in general (i.e. it isn't the writer's opinion directly).

I would think that's not 伺える, since they used kana but a different verb (窺う). Close to "can be glimpsed", perhaps, although that's a clunky translation here.
 
I think 伺える here is more like "can see" or "can perceive", indicating that the preceding bit is the writer's opinion or inference based on observation, rather a reporting of an actual statement.

You'll have to get away from direct translation there and go with a functional translation instead. "It looks as though...." or "It seems...." or something along those lines.
 
Seeing the first で as indicating a location rather than a means indeed makes much more sense. That also clears up the と評価され (if something is valued in a document, the valuator is the document's author).
I didn't know there was a second うかがう, interesting. The reason I assumed it was 伺う was that "期待が伺える" occurs a lot on Google (though checking now, so does "期待が窺える").

So then it would become something like:

In the justification for the award of the prize, too, it (the invention) is valued, stating that "It should improve the life quality of ...", and one can infer that (the prize committee) expects it to spread to the rest of the world.

ありがとうございました :)
 
I have another question. This time the source sentence comes from a Slashdot.jp article about the government's plan to make a number of mobile-related improvements. It gives an overview of the plan's goals:

主な目的としては、SIMロック解除の推進や継続利用割引プランの運用改善、MVNOの普及促進などを通じた通信費の軽減、4Gサービスを2016年ごろ に商用化することによる超高速通信の実現、事業者への規制見直しなどにより新たなモバイルサービスを実現しやすくすることなどが挙げられている。

The bolded part is what I'm having difficulty with. I assume it means "The reduction of communication (operating) costs, which will lead to an accelerated spread of MVNO's" (Mobile Virtual Network Operators, basically mobile network resellers), but I can't make it work grammatically. Especially the を confuses me. So far I know of the following meanings of this particle:
  • Direct object marker - impossible here since the verb 通じる is intransitive.
  • "(Away) from" as in 席を立つ (stand up *from* the chair). It seems unlikely that the government wants to move away from existing progress though.
  • "Through" or "via" as in 廊下を走る (run *through* the corridor). One might say that the plan is leading to a cost decrease "through" (by) accelerating the spread of MVNO's, but this doesn't seem very sensical. Not to mention that 通じた is in the past tense which would indicate that it already happened, while the whole article is about future plans.
  • Replacing が inside an indirect quote, such as in the example that was posted on this forum a while ago: 彼は彼女が好きです->彼が彼女を好きだ と知っています. However there is no quote in this sentence.
So I assume that there's another meaning of を that I don't know yet, but which? And why is 通じた in the past tense?

よろしくお願いします。
 
One might say that the plan is leading to a cost decrease "through" (by) accelerating the spread of MVNO's, but this doesn't seem very sensical. Not to mention that 通じた is in the past tense which would indicate that it already happened, while the whole article is about future plans.
This is the key of your misunderstanding. The past form is used for modification, not actually expressing the past tense. (It's more likely the perfect tense to show the completion of the action.)

つう・じる【通じる】
[動ザ上一]「つうずる」(サ変)の上一段化。
http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/146303/m0u/通じる/

つう・ずる【通ずる】
6 (「…を通じて」の形で)
㋑媒介とする。「友人を―・じて知り合う」「テレビを―・じて訴える」
http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/146333/m0u/通ずる/
 
Back with another article from Slashdot.jp. The topic is a "singles tax" that the South Korean government is (apparently) contemplating in response to low birth rates. The article summary ends with a commentary:

いっぽう、韓国政府はこれについて事実無根としている。背景には低出生率問題に対する予算の少なさがあり、政府高官が「韓国は今後数年すれば"独身税"を導入するようになるかもしれない」と述べたことが一人歩きした模様。

My translation attempt: "These actions by the South Korean government are ungrounded. The only thing that happened was a high-ranking government official saying that 'If South Korea does X in the following years, a singles tax may be introduced', based on the low birth rate estimate."

My main point of confusion is with すれば: since it is not preceded by a particle and 数年する is not a verb, I'm assuming that the X (what is being done) is implicit and left out - for example "If birth rates stay low". Is this correct? Would the author remove this much without leaving even a まま to replace it?

よろしくお願いします。
 
First line - the South Korea government are the ones saying the reports are "事実無根".

Relook at 低出生率問題に対する予算 - it's not just about low birthrates, and "予算の少なさ" has a lot to do with why they might be considering a tax.

今後数年すれば just means "after a few more years". (e.g. in a hypothetical near future, it might come to pass, according to the one unnamed official).
 
The bit you interpreted as "the only thing that happened..." is more like "the statement took on a life of its own"
 
Alright, let's see:
  • Even if the clause wrapped by とする has no explicit subject or verb, it can still refer to an implicit subject (people getting mad about the tax) that is different from the subject of する (the government).
  • する *can* in fact be used with time units and in this case takes a meaning similar to 経つ.
  • I misinterpreted the "estimate" dictionary translation of 予算, thinking that it refers to an estimation of the birth rate itself. Looks like it simply/only means "financial budget" instead.
  • Similarly I was thinking of 一人歩き as "an event that's going on alone, without other events", while it's closer to "going on by itself without guidance (from the government)".

New iteration: "The South Korean government says that (fears about the tax) are ungrounded. The background (for the controversy) is a low budget for dealing with the aging population, and a statement from a high-ranking official ("A singles tax may be introduced in South Korea in a few years") that took on a life of its own."

That's more logical indeed. I learned some things again, thank you both.
 
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