Tuesday, August 7, 2018

grammar - Need help translating a sentence - あるひ?


I'm trying to read a children's book and have already gotten stumped by the first sentence. "context" The picture shows an autumn day.


It reads: ある つめたい かぜの ふく ひ。


So far I've got ... (chilly wind blow)...



At first I thought ある was 'walk' and the grammar made no sense to me, but have then realized walk should instead be あるく. Also, ひ made no sense either. So looking up ある on Jisho I found that together あるひ (ある日) means "one day".


Is it correct to assume that ある and 日 can be split apart grammatically?


ある ( 冷たい 風の 吹く ) 日。


And if that's the case would : One day, a chilly wind blew. =/= A chilly wind blew, one day. : be correct?



Answer



You are on the right track.


In this case, 「ある」 and 「ひ」 should be regarded as two independen words rather than 「あるひ」 split into two parts.


「ある」, all by itself, can mean "one ~~" or "a certain ~~" (and it is used at the beginning of virtually every children's story.)


「ある つめたい かぜの ふく ひ」 is a relative clause (not a sentence) in which both 「ある」 and 「つめたいがぜのふく」 modify 「ひ」.


"One cold and windy day."



No comments:

Post a Comment

periodic trends - Comparing radii in lithium, beryllium, magnesium, aluminium and sodium ions

Apparently the of last four, $\ce{Mg^2+}$ is closest in radius to $\ce{Li+}$. Is this true, and if so, why would a whole larger shell ($\ce{...