teacher, why must you do this to me?! ;-;
Okay, so, this is all about Japanese, so it may get confusing...this is your chance to back out now.
If my teacher wasn't the sweetest thing alive, I would swear she's doing this to screw with my head.
We were doing drills today. What happens with drills is that you read two examples in the book to understand what the pattern is, then in class, you make up your own questions and answers to fit the pattern. Here were the two examples for drill H:
Q: "Ano apaato ga kirai ni natte hikkoshita n desu ka?"
A: "Ieie, hikkosu koto wa hikkoshimashita kedo ne, betsu ni ano apaato ga kirai ni natta wake ja nai n desu."
Q: "Is it that you came to dislike that apartment and moved?"
A: "No, no. I did move, but it is not particularly because I came to dislike that apartment."
and
Q: "Ano seetaa ga ki ni iranakute hito ni ageta n desu ka?"
A: "Ieie, ageru koto wa agemashita kedo ne, betsu ni ano seetaa ga ki ni iranakatta wake ja nai n desu."
Q: "Is it that you didn't like that sweater and gave it away to someone else?"
A: "No, no. I did give it away, but it is not particularly that I didn't like that sweater."
aegis interprets this as: "Okay, the pattern is that the questioner is asking 'is it the case that being x, you did y?', with them supposing that x is indeed the reason. The answerer says that while they DID do y, x was not the reason--or at least, not the main reason. X and Y will always be reversed in the answer."
Cue class.
I actually did answer the teacher's question based on the drill's pattern correctly--just as it was above. She asked me if it was the case that my job being troublesome, I quit; and I answered that while I did, indeed, quit, it was not because the job was troublesome. The problems started when she had my classmate ask me a question.
First question went along the lines of "Yuube, rumumeto kenkashite, apaato ni kaerimasendeshita ka?" (note: may not be completely correct, because I don't remember how exactly she phrased the question: I just remember that it had to do with evening, roommates fighting, and roommates not returning.) I was already a little confused because she was asking a negative question and I'm not sure if the "suru koto wa shimasu" pattern covers negatives, but I tried answering and started: "ieie, kaeru koto wa kaerimasendeshita"
And the teacher cuts in: "ieie, kenkasuru koto" and then pauses, waiting for me to continue with her modification. Except I'm not, because now the drill makes NO bloody sense to me. You can think that someone didn't return because they got into a fight (especially if that person has violent inclinations), but why would you think that a person would get into a fight because they didn't return (as in, not returning caused them to fight)?
I really need to know how to say "I think you're messing up the drill" because as it was, I just couldn't do the drill. She wouldn't let me say "No, it's that she didn't return, but it's not because she got into a fight", and I wasn't about to say "No, it's that she did fought, but it's not because she didn't return" because that just doesn't. Make. Sense.
So I'm just like "wakarimasen~" (...the all-purpose "you just blew my mind" answer in ACT class) and hoping she moves on to someone else.
But then she has the same classmate ask me a new question. This time it's "byooki ni natte, nani mo tabemasendeshita ka?" ("being sick, you didn't eat anything?").
So, once again the classmate's asked me a question in the negative, and I'm still not quite sure if the "suru koto wa shimasu" pattern even works for negatives, but I'm ready to give it a try. I start with "ieie, taberu koto wa tabemasendeshita--"
And I get shot down. AGAIN.
"byooki ni naru koto?" the teacher oh-so-sweetly suggests.
...okay, I can kind of get why she reversed this one, because someone can suppose you didn't eat because you're sick and they can suppose you're sick because you didn't eat, and both suppositions can be wrong. But. BUT.
It's still not what the book told us to do! It's not even answering the question the classmate is asking!
This is one time I'm sorely tempted to headdesk in class. Or at least shout something out in English, even though we have the classroom rule of "eego wa dame desu" (No English).
...no, nothing inappropriate, I just wanted to say "I think you're reversing this" or "the book is saying something else".
So, after class, some of my classmates who are just as confused as me start asking the teacher about it. And I bring up my book and show her the examples they gave and try explaining why what she was saying didn't work for me.
We didn't get anywhere. She told me we would talk about this more during the study period, which is in about...twenty minutes.
There may indeed be a good reason for why she was flipping it, but right now? I'm just glad my classmates backed me up by also asking about it. Even if she's right and we were all just confused, she'll at least recognize that if so many people are confused by the same drill, it's probably a matter of it not being explained well enough. So hopefully she won't take points off from my performance because of that.
...I still think she's totally wrong, though. >.>;;
Edit: Okay, she explained what she wanted me to say, which actually does make some sense (although it's still different from the drill's logic, it does use the same grammar, so it's correct), and when I told her what I'd been trying to say, she acknowledged that it would've been a correct response too. Yay for understanding!
If my teacher wasn't the sweetest thing alive, I would swear she's doing this to screw with my head.
We were doing drills today. What happens with drills is that you read two examples in the book to understand what the pattern is, then in class, you make up your own questions and answers to fit the pattern. Here were the two examples for drill H:
Q: "Ano apaato ga kirai ni natte hikkoshita n desu ka?"
A: "Ieie, hikkosu koto wa hikkoshimashita kedo ne, betsu ni ano apaato ga kirai ni natta wake ja nai n desu."
Q: "Is it that you came to dislike that apartment and moved?"
A: "No, no. I did move, but it is not particularly because I came to dislike that apartment."
and
Q: "Ano seetaa ga ki ni iranakute hito ni ageta n desu ka?"
A: "Ieie, ageru koto wa agemashita kedo ne, betsu ni ano seetaa ga ki ni iranakatta wake ja nai n desu."
Q: "Is it that you didn't like that sweater and gave it away to someone else?"
A: "No, no. I did give it away, but it is not particularly that I didn't like that sweater."
aegis interprets this as: "Okay, the pattern is that the questioner is asking 'is it the case that being x, you did y?', with them supposing that x is indeed the reason. The answerer says that while they DID do y, x was not the reason--or at least, not the main reason. X and Y will always be reversed in the answer."
Cue class.
I actually did answer the teacher's question based on the drill's pattern correctly--just as it was above. She asked me if it was the case that my job being troublesome, I quit; and I answered that while I did, indeed, quit, it was not because the job was troublesome. The problems started when she had my classmate ask me a question.
First question went along the lines of "Yuube, rumumeto kenkashite, apaato ni kaerimasendeshita ka?" (note: may not be completely correct, because I don't remember how exactly she phrased the question: I just remember that it had to do with evening, roommates fighting, and roommates not returning.) I was already a little confused because she was asking a negative question and I'm not sure if the "suru koto wa shimasu" pattern covers negatives, but I tried answering and started: "ieie, kaeru koto wa kaerimasendeshita"
And the teacher cuts in: "ieie, kenkasuru koto" and then pauses, waiting for me to continue with her modification. Except I'm not, because now the drill makes NO bloody sense to me. You can think that someone didn't return because they got into a fight (especially if that person has violent inclinations), but why would you think that a person would get into a fight because they didn't return (as in, not returning caused them to fight)?
I really need to know how to say "I think you're messing up the drill" because as it was, I just couldn't do the drill. She wouldn't let me say "No, it's that she didn't return, but it's not because she got into a fight", and I wasn't about to say "No, it's that she did fought, but it's not because she didn't return" because that just doesn't. Make. Sense.
So I'm just like "wakarimasen~" (...the all-purpose "you just blew my mind" answer in ACT class) and hoping she moves on to someone else.
But then she has the same classmate ask me a new question. This time it's "byooki ni natte, nani mo tabemasendeshita ka?" ("being sick, you didn't eat anything?").
So, once again the classmate's asked me a question in the negative, and I'm still not quite sure if the "suru koto wa shimasu" pattern even works for negatives, but I'm ready to give it a try. I start with "ieie, taberu koto wa tabemasendeshita--"
And I get shot down. AGAIN.
"byooki ni naru koto?" the teacher oh-so-sweetly suggests.
...okay, I can kind of get why she reversed this one, because someone can suppose you didn't eat because you're sick and they can suppose you're sick because you didn't eat, and both suppositions can be wrong. But. BUT.
It's still not what the book told us to do! It's not even answering the question the classmate is asking!
This is one time I'm sorely tempted to headdesk in class. Or at least shout something out in English, even though we have the classroom rule of "eego wa dame desu" (No English).
...no, nothing inappropriate, I just wanted to say "I think you're reversing this" or "the book is saying something else".
So, after class, some of my classmates who are just as confused as me start asking the teacher about it. And I bring up my book and show her the examples they gave and try explaining why what she was saying didn't work for me.
We didn't get anywhere. She told me we would talk about this more during the study period, which is in about...twenty minutes.
There may indeed be a good reason for why she was flipping it, but right now? I'm just glad my classmates backed me up by also asking about it. Even if she's right and we were all just confused, she'll at least recognize that if so many people are confused by the same drill, it's probably a matter of it not being explained well enough. So hopefully she won't take points off from my performance because of that.
...I still think she's totally wrong, though. >.>;;
Edit: Okay, she explained what she wanted me to say, which actually does make some sense (although it's still different from the drill's logic, it does use the same grammar, so it's correct), and when I told her what I'd been trying to say, she acknowledged that it would've been a correct response too. Yay for understanding!