The thing is

I'm sorry for taking such a long time for this lesson. But here we are with the second part of our series. To make up for my slowness, we'll pack the whole rest of the page into today's lesson.

と いう こと を
僕(ぼく) は 知(し)らなかった ん だ

The first thing you should notice is that you can read almost all of this text. Of the 16 characters, you already know 12. Not only that but the second line should look strangely familiar.

But let's start with the first line. Remember, last lesson we had それ が 現実(げんじつ) に 存在(そんざい) する, or "That really exists". The next 3 characters adds another piece of the puzzle. と(to) いう means "it is said", or "it is called". So それ が 現実(げんじつ) に 存在(そんざい) する と(to) いう could be interpreted as "That is said to really exist".

と(to) いう is made up of two parts. The first is the the particle と(to). I won't describe this particle today. Its use with いう is a bit of an idiom and describing the particle will just confuse you. The word いう is merely the verb "to say". It is usually written with the kanji 言(い)う, but in this idiomatic form it is often written with just hiragana.

The next part of the sentence is こと(koto). This literally means "thing". It is usually written with the kanji 事(こと)(koto). The specific use of this word is a bit complicated.

You will notice that we have the noun こと(koto) right after the verb いう. The way this works is very similar to english. Literally, our sentence to this point reads "That is said to really exist thing". We're basically making a noun out of the whole clause. It turns into "That is said to really exist"-thing.

Why do we want to do this? Well the reason lies in the next character of the sentence. を(wo) is another particle. Before I describe it, let me caution you. Even though the character is romanized "wo", it is pronounced "o". I will leave a more in-depth discussion of this to someone else. But to continue, を(wo) is the particle that indicates the direct object of the verb.

If you think back to your grade school days, the direct object of the verb is the thing that the verb acts on. So in the sentence "I open the door", "door" is the direct object. In "He kissed his girlfriend", "girlfriend" is the direct object. In english, the direct object is identified by it's position relative to the verb. In Japanese, you identify the direct object with the particle を(wo).

So that means "That is said to really exist" is the direct object of the verb. We only added こと(koto) in order to make the clause a noun. This is very common in Japanese. You will see it a lot.

But what is the verb of the sentence? Well, this bit should look familiar to you: 僕(ぼく) は 知(し)らなかった If you remember all the way back to day 2, this means "I didn't know".

What didn't the author know? Well, we need an direct object for the verb "know", don't we? Luckily we have one! It's "That is said to really exist". So what do we come up with? "I didn't know that *that* is said to really exist". Cool, huh? The grammar is much simpler in Japanese than in english. But it takes some getting used to. If you are having trouble, read through this discussion again. If you still have trouble, don't worry. We will see this type of construction a lot. You will have plenty of practice!

The sentence seems finished. But... there are still characters left. It's a bit like when I tried to fix my sink a while ago. Probably those bits aren't needed, right? Well, there's a purpose for everything and this particular bit is one of my favorite parts of Japanese.

The combination ん だ(da) is a contraction of the characters の だ(da). The character の in this case works just like こと(koto). It's turning the whole sentence into a single noun. Why on earth would we want to do this?

Well, if you have been doing your reading, you will remember what だ(da) does. It asserts something. So ぼく だ(da) means "it's me". So ん だ(da) literally means "<All the stuff before the ん> is". More colloquially, it puts the sentence into "explanation mode".

By putting ん だ(da) at the end of the sentence, the author is indicating that he feels he needs to explain his actions. "The thing is, I didn't know that disease really existed". He's not just saying that he didn't know the disease existed, but is also saying that there's probably some reason for having to say that he didn't know about it.

Japanese is full of very subtle points like this. Most of them are untranslateable into english. Reading Japanese manga in the original language is much more rewarding that reading a translation. You get to see a lot more about the characters in the story.

Only a few characters today. And since I'm going late today, I'll keep my trap shut. But there aren't that many left to go in hiragana!!!

Two new pieces of vocabulary. We saw these words in idiomatic contexts, but they are useful normal words in their own right.

Lots of grammar today! 4 points.

I've tried to dissect our sentence into useful grammatical idioms. In breaking with my "engrish" tradition, the english tranlation is not formulated like the Japanese. This is because these idiomatic uses are a bit difficult to wrap your brain around at first. It is best to get as much practice as possible converting from one to the other.

You may find it difficult for a while to quiz these ones. But keep at it. As we go on, we'll add more examples of these grammatical idioms. This will help you get a better idea of how it all works. Don't be dismayed if it doesn't click just yet.

Today's Mnemosyne file. 10 more items in the list. That brings us up to a total of 70. Not bad at all. We're averaging 10 items a day.

The reading today is about verbs. It's a fairly short entry but it's very important to our progress in the future.

That's it for today. It's a kind of tricky day with a lot of grammar. Next day we have a treat in store. We start the manga proper!