Thursday, 12 August 2010

Notorious Relative Clauses

Relative Clauses are notorious in that the word order is totally different than English. Also, I have found no single article explicitly explaining Relative Clauses, so I thought, "Hey, I'll make one now."
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So, to start, everything that modifies the noun, i.e the relative clause come before the noun it modifies. For example (the relative clause is underlined here with the articles omitted, purely because it makes it easier when you have to translate it):

The house, that is big -->  Is big house --> 大きい家

I saw the house, that is big --> I is big house saw --> 私は大きい家を見た。
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"So, what's the difficulty in that?" you may ask.
Well, I've been using google translator to check my sentences, but since these sentences can be translated in so many different ways, it never gave me a relative clause. There's a lesson to be learnt there, never use a translator, check it yourself :). The second sentence, for example, though "I saw the house, that is big" is perfectly valid, in English we're more likely to say "I saw a big house", which comes from the same sentence.

Secondly, longer, and therefore more complex sentences take longer to translate, and you sometimes end up thinking, "how the bloody hell did I get that!" Such as:

I can see the mountain where the dragon lives --> I dragon lives (is dwelling) mountain see can.
私は竜が住んでいる山を見ること出来る。
This sentence is awfully confusing, as the word is sooooooo different to what we, as English, use.
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Some more relative clause practice:

1) I ate cheese which was nice.
2) I slept in a house which was old.
3) I want to see a movie that is new.
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1) 私はよかったチーズを食べた。
2) 私は古かった家で寝た。
3) 私は新しい見たい。

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