@chocolate I was re-reading this question, and I made the same mistake (misunderstanding who's the subject). So, what is the hint that precises that it is not 琥珀 who says "謝れ" to the subject?

Fun words: 大丈夫, 六本木. Almost as if somene was intentionally choosing similar looking kanji. :)

Even if there are looking a bit the same there is no way to mix them up, don't you think so?

I don't understand..

この、

> I already know that 彼が金を貸してくれたことは私は彼に信用されているということだ。is awkward and that's why I avoided it.

Is he saying he knew that it's awkward before I posted my comment?

じゃないですよね・・・

おや。

@choco so is 彼が金を貸してくれたこと natural?

The clause 彼が金を貸してくれたこと itself? Yes.

To use it in that sentence? No

but when used in the whole sentence, why does it become strange?

Yes, to use that clause in the whole sentence, you'd use ということは

「彼が金を貸してくれたことは、ありがたいことだ。」 would be okay

I wonder why. Is it because the second half of the sentence uses ということ ?

「彼が金を貸してくれたことは、彼は私を信用している.. bla bla」 is not natural

How about 彼が金を貸してくれたことは私は彼に信用されていることだ, when both does not use という ?

へんです・・

Yes, I think you need to use という for both

!

Can I suggest an explanation

I'm really not sure of it though, but I'm going to try to explain it

Yeah, I know.. so that's why I said I can't explain

@cypher san's comment was useful

which he quoted from his grammar book

Here's my attempt to understand: ~ということ creates an instance, a one-off event that happens in reality, so when we refer to that event that happened, we use ということ

but if it's just こと, it refers to all events of that type

instead of an instance of that event

(I'm not sure if this makes sense, I'm just trying out explanations)

あーそうかな・・そうかも

わからんｗ

does it seem to be what I said?

Hmm

But you'd also use ことは for an event that actually happened, like

彼が金を貸してくれたことは、ありがたかった

hmmm

It seems there is something fixed in the structure ～ということは～ということだ

そうそう！

That's what @cypher san suggested in the comment

oh, I just read his comment. I'm still slow at reading :(

if it's idiomatic, then it's quite difficult to ask for a reason for the pattern

@駑馬十駕 「琥珀さんは謝れって言ってたけど、あんな話を聞いたあとだとヘンに意識してしまって、困る。」って読んで、

文全体を読んで、まず、「困る。」の主語は、「私」だな、って思いますね。

で、「してしまって」があるので、

you'll know that ～～してしまって is probably the reason for 私's feeling 困る.

because してしまう sounds like... unfavorable, unintentional (like "end up doing~~"?)

So the subject of 変に意識する is also 私.

「あんな話を聞いたあとだと・・・」 ← Someone heard あんな話・・・

これは、文脈で・・・？

例えば、"After (someone) heard such a 話, I felt troubled/awkward"

って考えたら、

たぶん、(someone)は、「私」だろうなーって・・

Whooops I just realised that you were asking about 謝れ lol

「琥珀さんは謝れって言ってたけど、」

You probably thought that it was saying "someone said 琥珀さん should apologize"

To mean that, I'd probably say 「（Someoneは、）琥珀さんに『謝れ』って言ってたけど」

Wait, but it'd be ambiguous, no? It can also mean "Someone said that I should apologize to Kohaku san"

Hmm

So... I'd say 琥珀さんは謝れって言ってたけど to mean "Kohaku san said 謝れ (to me?)"

and... to say "Someone told 琥珀さん to apologize"...

「(someone は) 琥珀さんに謝れって言ってたけど」 or, to be clearer... maybe 「琥珀さんに、XXに謝れと言ってたけど」(They told Kohaku san to apologize to XX)

Two に's

@駑馬十駕 Sorry I'm getting confused! :D

@chocolate Thank you very much for explaining. Even if your explanation is a bit confused it still helps me. Thank you. There is still some things I want to elucidate but I can't ask now.

@駑馬十駕 いあいあ。。上手に説明できなくてすいません ^^;

So it seems like I have offended at least two people lately

For example, here

How should I phrase this kind of question?

Or, should I not ask that kind of thing to begin with?

I didn't really understand his answer then (the 1st edit), so...

did you intend to be confrontational?

I meant to say, "If you're saying that the sentence is natural, then it's not."

I think that it is possible that "so are you saying" can be interpreted as confrontational

maybe I should have said more like... "I don't really understand, since my english is not good enough, but if you mean blahblah, then I don't think it's blah blah, from my native intuition"?

@Flaw Ohh... I see..

okay.. I'll avoid using that phrase

I think it's fine, because it's direct and it gets to the question quickly to clarify things. But I think some users may see it as a confrontation

heh... ^^;

I want to sound as soft/mild as possible...

I think because this is a place for learning, and for exchange of ideas, that we should not be so quick to take offence or assume that the other party takes offence. We should try as much as possible to assume that the situation might not be perfectly clear and that is why questions are being raised and people are trying to find out more about the situation by asking each other questions, even though the phrasing might sound rude, but is usually not the case.

Arguments/questions exist because there are holes in understanding, and we argue in order to solve the misunderstandings. I use the word "argument" here in the neutral sense, where an argument is an exchange of statements developed to convince someone of something or to present reasons for accepting conclusions.

As long as we focus on the issue, instead of directing our energy at each other, personal conflict should not even be apparent in the minds of the arguers.

If we should find ourselves offended, or find ourselves afraid to ask someone something for fear of a personal conflict. Then we should ask ourselves why have we allowed the focus to shift away from the issue, to the persons involved.

Which is nicely summarised in 对事不对人 in Chinese

@chocolate don't worry too much about it

no matter how people phrase things, there will always be people who take offence

@rhyaeris thank you^^

@rhyaeris おお・・^^;

granted, your phrasing can be interpreted as a bit confrontational but that's no reason to jump on you

we can't speak super politely all the time. it's tiring

@Flaw are you a native Singaporean?

I ask because that chinese phrase sounds really familiar

uh, please ignore if it's too personal a question. :)

@Flaw そう・・・ and, yesterday when I posted the comment, it seems like they mistook me for the OP... what should I say, in such a situation? Maybe "Excuse me, but I am not the OP"?

I kind of feel that maybe I might sound offended if I say so...

(I mean, I want to avoid sounding offended, too.. as well as sounding offensive.)

@rhyaeris Oh I think it's fine.. Many of us know he's a uni student in Singapore

personally I think that adding "excuse me" worsens things... sort of like putting someone in his proper place

or telling someone off

@rhyaeris Oh no! :D

there's really not much to change, actually

@CowperKettle Welcome to the Japanese chat room!

if you really want to nitpick, "I am not" can be changed to the contraction "I'm not"

@chocolate Thanks!

not using contractions can sound formal / unfriendly at times

@rhyaeris Oh I don't want to nitpick hehe!

yep, people just need to stop taking themselves so seriously. :)

@CowperKettle hello!

I want to sound soft... There I wanted to sound as soft as I could... but I failed :p

not that you failed, but... to use another chinese analogy, it's as if one were playing the piano to a cow

some people just don't get it

heh.. 馬耳東風? I'm sure it's not this one :D

121chineselessons.com/resources/chinese-idiom-and-proverb/…

:)

对牛弹琴

Ohh.. Maaybe it has similar nuance to 馬の耳に念仏 ...

@CowperKettle You're in Russia, if I recall correctly?

what does that mean?

oh. I can guess from the kanji XD

haha, yeah

I gotta go now, later! ノシ

see you!

@chocolate Yes. I'm lurking now..

..reading some stuff elsewhere

I'm in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

The place where the last Tsar was killed.

oh gosh

so you know russian, english... japanese? :o

Russian and English. No Japanese. (0:

ah :)

I know only "Arigato"

well, nice to you to join us :)

haha yes!

unfortunately I don't know any russian words...

Vodka

Sputnik

oh!

Kosmonaut

(0:

what's the last one? :O

Astronaut, only in Russian

haha I had no idea that vodka was russian

i see

is it relatively difficult to learn? Russian

Vodka = voda (water) + hypocoristic suffix "ka" --->>> "small water", "little water"

@rhyaeris Russian is one of the hardest languages to learn.

oh!!

that's rather amazing

and on top of that, English, too...

and chemistry? haha

But it's easy when you were born in Russia.

Oh, yes, I should be reading chemistry.

Sorry.

():

BBL

see you!

@user4092 why is 火らしい花 illogical while other nounらしいnoun combinations are acceptable? I don't understand :o

@rhyaeris What was the clue? hahaha

well I knew you were from singapore from your profile haha

but months back I saw one of the questions you asked, detailing how chinese characters are taught stroke-by-stroke

I found it quite funny haha

i'm a singaporean too, and when I think back to those times they seem almost silly to me. we would sit in front of the class and trace the words, fingers in the air, reciting the strokes

so I guessed you were probably a native

@chocolate here's my (wall-of-text :P) way I interpreted his comments, seeing as I chimed in

1. you ask whether Knixd thinks 彼が金を貸してくれたことは私は彼に信用されているということだ is acceptable/natural, presumably based on his statement that "Act/Action(こと) is a B sort of thing(ということ)"(?)
2. he writes in his answer in response that he thinks you're over-thinking things, and then says "I'd suggest you get "The Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese". It'll save you a lot of frustration.", which is a statement which I interpreted, at least, as presuming that you were wrong and he was right.
3. you say you don't need something like that in Japanese, and say "we'd say" which I think should've strongly suggested …

I didn't think I could convince him otherwise so personally I think it's best to just move on. I know it's overused, but I think this xkcd comic does sum things up

Oops, I didn't even realise it

I see... in general, suffixea are written in kana, aren't they?

suffixes

Hmm... how would 見える change the meaning?

Although OP may be right, the possessive particle の may do the job just fine. :)

Oh, I see what you're driving at!

Shall I delete my comment? I don't think I can edit it anymore

It would indicate a quality in that case, I believe

I always compare it to the chinese 的, which should be very loose as well

I think it can indicate possession as well as those vague semantic relationships that you mentioned :)

comment fixed

although, do you know why らしい would not be acceptable?

thanks for letting me know :)

What's up with all these people that have nicknames like user5373783? Did they really register like that? o,o

@kuchitsu it's the default name you get if you don't put a name in

Hmm. Not sure if I like the idea. It results in a lot of users that are kinda impossible to tell apart quickly.

@cypher おぉっ・・

１．の　「presumably based on his statement that "Act/Action(こと) is a B sort of thing(ということ)"」は、その通りです。。。

@cypher ありがとうございます・・

なんか、全体の話の「流れ」がわかってきました・・・

なんというか、、、ちょっとお互いに誤解したまま、話を進めてしまった感じもありますね・・・

今度から、もうちょっと、誤解とかを生まないように、気を付けたいと思います・・

@cypher そうですね・・

@cypherさんの助け舟で、かなり助けられましたね・・・ありがとうございました。

@rhyaeris さん、コメントありがとう・・

(「～～ことは～～ということ」の、チャットルームの。)

どういたしまして :)

it's past 2am in Japan, isn't it though?

you should sleep soon!

へへ。。そうです＾＾

寝ねば！　：ＤＤ

きゃっ・・・

you're not sleeping? :o

もおお・・・

コワいねん

Maybe I should flag it as "offensive"?

Is this kind of comment usually considered offensive..?

@chocolate ちょっとわからないけど、おやすみなさい :)

そおね・・・

おやすみなさい＾＾

as for the comment, it's wholly unnecessary

it certainly is rude

anyway, see you. :)

i.imgur.com/8GsfAcD.jpg Bottom left: is シト some funny way to say 人?

So it's not really supposed to be funny, but more like gives the character a little more... character?

Okay, thanks.