@snailboat aha! 体言 and 用言. very good words to know

@gibbon We have 他人丼 too

@ちょこれーと But where's the fun in that? :p Maybe I'm just extra dense this morning

amazon.co.uk/The-Xenophobes-Guide-Japanese-Guides/dp/1906042403/… Anyone here read this? I just noticed the swedes version and bought it as a gift, I've only flipped through it but it's very difficult to tell when things are jokes or not

I mean mostly it's a kind of truth taken to the extreme I guess.. I'm afraid it won't be very helpful or even funny to a non-swede :p Wonder if it's the same with the Japanese one.

patient: 「先生どこが悪いんでしょう」 doctor: 「そうですね......

大したことはないと思います」

is that = 大したことではない, or is it 大したことがない?

It seems like the former would be followed by an explanation or preceded by the patient asking about a specific problem

@ogicu8abruok The latter.

But my understanding is that this is the contrastive は, so there is somewhat of an implication that there is some unimportant/trivial stuff, IMO.

Or, well, I guess maybe not.

It depends on the pitch.

大したことは[ないと思います], with は just being at a normal pitch would be just a normal topic marker, while [大したことはない]と思います with は being at a raised pitch would be contrastive

i don't think you can leave out the で so i think it has to be the latter

but to my english brain, the former seems more natural

"it's nothing bad"

@DariusJahandarie i look forward to the day when my ear is good enough to pick up differences like that in the pitch accent

Dunno, I said it out-loud and it seemed fine.

It's certainly how I figure a lot of things out. althack.org/taishitakoto.m4a

My accent is probably horrible. I can't tell anymore, I've heard my own voice too much.

(Perhaps a sign of insanity...)

Lots of removed comments here..

You can delete mine too, since they make no sense now. I'd delete them myself if I could, but it looks like it's too late for me.

Thanks.

@snailboat Then it must have been important!