(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]

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)