(untitled)

[lnhammer]

Suzumushi mo
kokoro mo kimi de
nakareta na

—18 October 2009

Unpoetic, probably unidiomatic, and no doubt ungrammatical, but yes, a haiku I wrote in Japanese. Assuming I knew what I was doing, a rough translation would be something like "Like the bell cricket / (my) heart too because of you / could chirp/sing/cry" -- "my" being unstated but I think would be understood. The intended meaning is chirp/sing, but without kanji, it could also be read as cry as in weep.

Corrections appreciated.

ETA verb fix.

---L.

Comments

[ex_asakiyume313]

This is a great conceit, better maybe than you think because "naku," as well as meaning cry, can be the adjectival form of "nashi" (not-be; present-day "nai"), so your poem could end up meaning something like "the cricket and my heart weep at your absence"--only with weep, sing, and absence all conveyed by the one word. Bells don't "naku" (cry/sing), though; they "naru" (ring)--so there's even more wordplay potential there.

However, there isn't a form "nakaretta" and "de" can't quite take the weight you're trying to give it.

To get what you're intending, you'd want something like

suzumushi mo
ware no kokoro mo
naki ni keri

[ware being "I"--because although your instinct to not specify the speaker is a good one, in a case like this it's important because "kokoro" has so many potential meanings--and "naki ne keri" being a classical construction for "becomes verb-or -adjective-in-question"]

... but this verse leaves out the kimi! So that's a problem. And although my "naki ni keri" will work for nashi/naku meaning "cease to exist," I'm not 100 percent sure we can use it for naku "cry." Once again, I shall apply to the excellent <lj user="wakanomori" for more guidance....

should be

[ex_asakiyume313]

"naki NI keri" in my explanation

[lnhammer]

I need my grammar books to follow parts of that, but for "nakaretta" -- I was trying to construct the plain past tense of "nakaresu", the passive form (being used as a potential) of "naku". Did I mess that one up?

---L.

[ex_asakiyume313]

I'm not good on what all these forms are called, but:

naku: to cry/call (I call)
nakareru: to be cried/called "nakareru namida" (the tears [I] cried; the cried tears)
nakasu: to make cry, causatively "nakashita" (I made [him] cry)
nakasareru: to be made to cry "nakasareta" (I was made to cry)

I think you maybe want the last one? The crickets and your heart are made to cry? Because if you just had the passive one, it would be that you and the crickets were the thing that was cried [by something else].... I think.

So I think you'd want "nakasareta." But if you did want the simply passive, then you'd want it just nakareta. Not with the doubling of the consonant. A simply past of naku would be naita. Only some verbs (like "kau" [buy]) do that doubling thing (katta -bought). Naru, "to ring," would do it in simple past: "natta" (rang)--but if you made it "narasu" (make ring), the past would be "narashita," with no doubling.

I am the world's worst explainer because of being rusty. Take what I say with a few teaspoons of salt. I'll get Waka to check and correct any mistakes I've made.

[lnhammer]

Eh, I see where I went wrong: I was conjugating nakareru as a consonant stem ending in -ru instead of a vowel stem. So I was going for nakareta.

According to The Handbook of Japanese Verbs by Taeko Kamiya section 3.24 (p.134) (as well as other authors), the passive form is also used as a potential -- "is able to cry/chirp". I've no idea how idiomatic this is, though, compared to the koto ga dekiru construction.

---L.

Consider this a comment edit

[lnhammer]

Eh -- meant to make that, "was able to cry/chirp" in the past tense.

Re: Consider this a comment edit

[ex_asakiyume313]

LOL, I was looking around for the edit button up in above, for one of my comments, and then remembered, oh yeah, that's a feature of an LJ paid account... not a Dreamwidth free account...

[ex_asakiyume313]

Oh yes, you're right--that's another thing it can mean. And it's very idiomatic--I think it's easily as common as koto ga dekiru.

[lnhammer]

So backing around to the other side of the warehouse, what particle would take the weight that "de" can't -- "kara"?

(I haven't really sorted out the particles that relate nouns to actions of verbs -- as with the division of labor among German prepositions, I need with a pile of them and focus. But not till after my current round of swotting up verbs.)

---L.

[ex_asakiyume313]

Well--and here I'm feeling my way for an explanation--in my experience, no one particle is used to make that connection. You're wanting a single-word equivalent to "because," but although "no de" and "kara" both can be translated as "because," it seems to me that Japanese doesn't *go* that way. You can say it (you could say " XX no tame ni, YY" or "XX no sei de YY" or "XX ga aru kara YY," which mean, respectively "For the sake of [because of] XX, YY" or "Because of [with the implication of blame or fault] XX, YY" or "Because there is XX, YY"), but it comes out really wordy and heavy. Instead, it's my impression--and I can't stress enough that this is my impression and not something I've learned in a language class--that when Japanese express something like this, they just line the things up together, and the reader implies the "because." So for instance, you might have a character in a manga say something like "suzumushi ga naite... tottemo ureshikatta desu" (the suzumushi were singing.... I was very happy"--with the "because" not stated but implied... but because it's not stated, it could be the overall atmosphere, etc., but the emblematic thing is the suzumushi.

You do use "no de" and "kara," though--I don't mean to imply that you never do... just maybe not in poetic situations? It feels overly explainy. But for instance, you'd totally say

"okane ga nai no de, hon ga kaenai" (I don't have any money, so I can't buy a book/because I have no money, I can't buy a book)

or

"okane ga nai kara, hon ga kaenai" (I don't have any money, so I can't buy a book/because I have no money, I can't buy a book)

or

kare ga suki da kara, miru dake de ureshiku naru. (Because I love him, I become happy just seeing him.)

or

Kare ga suki no de, miru dake de ureshiku naru. (same)

But you still wouldn't say "kimi kara suzumushi ga naku" ... there's no verb or ... hmmm.

I mean, you could, for a statement, say "kimi ga iru no de, suzumushi ga naku" or "kimi ga iru kara, suzumushi ga naku"--in fact, I know a pop song that does that... but you couldn't just have the "kimi" and go straight to the result...

... I have a feeling I haven't elucidated anything, and in fact have only confused myself. Well, I'll see what Waka says...

[lnhammer]

So "kara" needs a verb that it can point the noun-or-phrase it postfixes at. That makes sense. And which in our above case we have not got.

"No de" requires a clause in front of it -- something like "kimi iru no de".

---L.

[lnhammer]

Ga. Assume I put the subject particle after kimi BEFORE I clicked post.

[ex_asakiyume313]

LOL, and I answered before getting the correction!

Sorry!

[ex_asakiyume313]

Yeah, but you'd want a particle, wa or ga: Kimi ga iru no de or Kimi wa [written as ha] iru no de

(glad the rambling made, in the end, a bit of sense)

[ex_asakiyume313]

I forgot if I asked you this before: Do you know about the website Lang 8? (http://lang-8.com/)

You make posts in your target language, and native speakers read, respond, and offer pointers and corrections. For reciprocity's sake, you also read their entries and respond in English and offer comments, etc. There are a high percentage of English-Japanese, Japanese-English learners. My younger daughter's using it to improve her Japanese, and I think it's helping--but lest you get the impression it's all teenagers, I hasten to add that most of the people she's partnered with appear to be young adults.

I haven't actually been to the site (except just now to get the URL), but as I say, I've been impressed by what it's done for Little Springtime.








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[lnhammer]

Er, no -- I hadn't met this. That looks very useful indeed.

---L.