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need help understanding the sentences in a manga

margie

後輩
27 Oct 2014
23
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Hi, I need help understanding the sentence that the man said in these pages of a manga I'm trying to read...

Some context: the man is a ghost/spirit, which is why the boy think that he's getting more vivid (the man had appear multiple times before). The boy is an orphan with no relatives, but recently found that he actually had a grandpa who passed away and inherited his house to him. The day he moved into the house, he get depressed about how even if he had inherited the house, it doesn't change the uneasy/lonely feeling he had because he's still all alone. The ghost was trying to cheer him up (well, I think basically saying that the boy was wrong about him being all alone still).

I've tried google translate and opening up dictionary to understand what was being said. But I'm still a beginner in japanese, and google gave me some weird translations (enough for me to understand the context, but not enough to really understand what was being said), and I'm confused as to how the words made up to be a meaningful text just from the dictionary meaning.... It'd be nice if anyone can provide a simple explanation for the grammar, so I could learn it.

Thank you in advance :)
 

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You want us to write grammar lessons for everything that was said in those two pages of your comic book? That's beyond the scope of this thread.
 
What part can't you get specifically? There is no hard-to-understand grammar there. (I found a nice double meaning in his words, though.)
 
Sorry if I'm not being clear. I'm really a beginner in japanese and I learn it on my own. (I'm probably level 0 if I took up fluency test).

On page 40, I can't understand the last two panel. The ghost is saying something about the house and the boy, I think. So "uketsugare tsunagari kimi no moto e tadoritsuita no dakara", 'tsunagari' explains the 'uketsugare'. 'kimi no moto e tadoritsuita' means 'something came/arrived towards you', and the something is the 'uketsugare tsunagari' (the inheritance?). Is tsunagari have literal meaning in the sentence or just signaling relationship in the sentence? Or am I wrong to read it that way?
 
受け継がれ and 繋がり are both verbs. Do you understand what forms these are and what the function of it is?
 
I know 繋がり is intransitive verb. It explains the state of the subject.

As for 受け継がれ. I think it's transitive verb (can't find anything on the -re form, unless it's actually a short version of -rareru?)
 
That's not what I asked. You explained just a characteristic of the verbs 繋が and 受け継. Haven't you learned "verb conjugation" at all?
 
Oh, I'm sorry if that's not what you're asking. I haven't learn about it. So 受け継がれ 繋がり is a verb conjugation? I got that feeling from how the words are structured, but I haven't learned tenses yet (nor do I know what the term for it), so I've been trying to find the right tenses/any hint of grammar by deciphering the meaning. Thank you for the hint, though, I'm looking for materials about it right now.

PS: Sorry if it seemed like I'm not trying to learn about it first before jumping into texts. The first part of the manga was still easy enough for me to understand correctly with my low skill and a bit of grammar googling. Also, it is my intention to learn grammar through exposure to raw materials because my brain works better that way (deconstructing sentences and analyzing how it was put a certain way, instead of learning how to build a sentence by following a preset recipe).
 
Also, it is my intention to learn grammar through exposure to raw materials because my brain works better that way (deconstructing sentences and analyzing how it was put a certain way, instead of learning how to build a sentence by following a preset recipe)

Yeah....we get a lot of people like that.

If your method works so well then why are you asking us to explain the grammar to you? By the way, that's what every single one of all the other people who say that also do.....tell us they're special snowflakes with a magical learning method that allows them to bypass learning grammar and conjugation and then ask us to write individualized grammar and conjugation explanations just for them.

Go learn the basics from a textbook. We will be happy to help you with questions arising from that.
 
deconstructing sentences and analyzing how it was put a certain way, instead of learning how to build a sentence by following a preset recipe
Textbooks are needed exactly for that purpose, not just for "learning how to build a sentence". You can find explanations about the verb conjugation, for instance in Wikipedia, and you can get that 繋がり is the -masu stem(i-form/ren'yōkei) of 繋がる from there, but how are you going to determine why the -masu stem is used there? This form has so many functions, and the meaning differs depending on it.
Now I'm wondering if it's really possible to understand the meaning of the rest part of those pages or the manga you read so far correctly without knowing even the verb conjugation...
 
I just noticed you've been using your method for at least three years now.

How does one spend three years learning Japanese and not know the first thing about conjugation? Especially when you said even three years ago that you were figuring out Japanese grammar through reading comic books.

Your method is a complete flop.

If you had spent half the time learning from proper materials that you have wasted googling and guessing your way through comic books you would have had this all down and been done with it by now....instead of facing never-ending googling and guessing.
 
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Sorry if I offended any you in any ways. It wasn't my intention. Yes, it's been three years since my last post here (didn't realized it's been that long), and I admit, learning Japanese isn't my top priority so those years wasn't spent on learning it in a continuous way.

Just want to clear up something though: I didn't said I don't need grammar. I know I do. I just haven't reached verb conjugation yet (or tenses in that matter, except for simple past), thus the reason I asked here, so I know what to look in order to understand the sentence. I'm learning Japnese from the basic again to refresh my memory for the grammar rule I already know and understand. The manga thing is a fun way for me to learn without making it feel like studying. If I found something new (grammar or word) I look it up and learn about it. That way, I increase my vocab and help building my memory about that particular grammar through the looking up exercise. As I said before, the first part of the manga is still easy to understand since the sentences are familiar enough either from anime, dorama, or bilingual textbook. There are few difficult sentences, those above being some of them, but I kept note of it and try to check if any new grammar I learn fit those sentences.

Thanks to toritobe for bringing up verb conjugation, I look up for the material yesterday and is learning about it. Hopefully, my studying part quickly catch up to the fun part so I could understand the sentences soon.

Again, sorry if I'm asking for help here seemed offensive to the spirit of learning in this site or if my words came out as insincere to anyone. This is the only forum I found that have section like this to help people learning so it never my intention to offend anyone here. That being the case, I'm gonna stop my question here before this post become any more personal or out of topic. Thank you for the help and advice you've been sharing here (directly or indirectly) with me. Next time, I'll make sure to post something worth asking for help.
 
You're not offending anyone and you are welcome to ask questions.

The problems are that you are asking for us to write grammar lessons for you when those lessons already exist in textbooks and that you are asking for explanations of more intermediate/advanced grammar points when you clearly haven't bothered to learn basic grammar points yet. It looks like your purpose is merely to read your comic book and not to learn Japanese.

Please consider buying and using a proper textbook for learning the fundamentals of Japanese. We will be happy to help you with it.
 
I didn't said I don't need grammar. I know I do. I just haven't reached verb conjugation yet (or tenses in that matter, except for simple past)
That means you don't know almost nothing about Japanese grammar, and it's totally impossible to understand almost all Japanese sentences.
The -masu stem is not tense, by the way. It's not aspect or mood, either. The -masu stem is used to connect clauses there, just like "and" in English. You also need to learn about voice (passive voice in this case) to understand the meaning of 受け継がれ.

Think about people who are going to read English sentences without knowing the forms/expressions such like done, is doing, is done, have done, or have been doing. How do you explain to learners of English if they ask about what the meaning of "have done" in an English sentence is? You might be able to explain that the form expresses "experience" in that case, for instance, but it doesn't seem effective for learners who don't know nothing about the functions of the present perfect tense, let alone learners who don't know even the English verb conjugation such like the past participle form. What you are doing now is like that. It's OK to ask us to translate those sentences if you just want to read the manga, but your way is totally ineffective for learning Japanese after all.
 
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