皆さん, I need a little help to translate this sentence. I didn`t understand the use of the… - Feed Post by TheTower
皆さん, I need a little help to translate this sentence. I didn`t understand the use of the particles. :'(
“ミスト”と呼ばれる魔の力(chikara)に満ちた世界、イヴァリース(Ivalice)。
May someone give me a light? *-*
ありがとうございます！
“ミスト”と呼ばれる魔の力(chikara)に満ちた世界、イヴァリース(Ivalice)。
May someone give me a light? *-*
ありがとうございます！
posted by TheTower
Comments 21
My guess would be something along the lines of:
The magic power known as "Mist" spread throughout the world, Ivalice.
('engulfed' or 'filled the world' could also work maybe)
Maybe Mog has a better answer.
Ah, thank you very very much!!
This helped me a lot! \(^-^)/
I'm guessing this is from FF12? I've played FF Tactics and FF Tactics Advance, and I don't remember anything about magical 'mist'. I own FF12 but never got around to starting it, yet... :P
Your translation seems fine already, Kimbo, except that it sounds like the focus of the sentence is on the 'magic power' doing something, rather than the sentence being a description of the 'world'. I think 'filled' would sound better too.
I'd probably literally translate and understand it in my head as:
"Mist"-called magical power filled world, Ivalice.
But here's a better translation:
Ivalice--a world filled by a magical power called "Mist".
There are only three particles in the sentence (と,の,に). The first two particles are used in very basic ways which shouldn't need any further explanation.
に on the other hand... I'm not even sure I understand correctly enough to explain the use of に in this sentence. Basically, this に seems to mean "with", but try finding a textbook that clearly explains "with" as being a possible meaning... I would say the に particle makes the previous phrase adverbial, so to modify the verb that comes after it, but I doubt this is correct either... I wonder if anyone else can explain this に particle properly? ^^;- You're right. Now you've pointed it out, I understand it better.
Ivalice - a world filled with the magic known as 'Mist'.
It seems this is a pattern that is sometimes used. (noun)に満ちた(noun) to mean "full of", rather than just filled or rising.
I feel like I've learnt a bit from this. Maybe I should start doing translation to understand grammar better. Any suggestions? (manga sentences tend to be too short and abstract) 
Light novels then? Those should have the full sentences you're looking for without being super hard or too short. Full length news articles (bigger than we get on here) could work too.- I'll try light novels! I guess I'll have wait until I'm in Japan to buy some though.
you can buy light novels in japanese online even outside of japan, typically on ebay.- I've now spent a fair amount of time trying to understand the exact usage of this に, but I still don't really have a good answer.
・に definitely doesn't seem to be marking locative or dative case.
・It doesn't seem like に is marking 'magical power' as an indirect object, since the verb 満ちる is intransitive...
・I don't know if it makes sense that に could be marking 'magical power' as a passive agent either (filled 'by' a magical power).
・The 'magical power' seems to be instrumental to the verb 'filled'. To mark the 'magical power' as instrumental case (filled 'with/using' magical power) wouldn't the で particle be used? But then the で particle originated from に in the first place... So maybe に is being used to mark instrumental case?
・I still think に is used to make the previous phrase adverbial. に being a form of the copula な/だ might just have more of a plain linking function to the verb following it...
Bleh, idk! I'm sure the answer is actually really simple. I don't like just leaving it at 'that is just the pattern that is used'. :P - maybe it's just a typo? games can occasionally have them.
- That would be kinda funny after how long I spent trying to understand it, but no, it isn't a typo. Here's a link with 39 example sentences containing "に満ち":
http://beta.jisho.org/search/に満ち #sentences
Intrestingly, there are also 2 example sentences containing "で満ち":
http://beta.jisho.org/search/で満ち #sentences - Hmm... It's kinda inconvenient for a Japanese learning site not being able to urlise Japanese characters...
beta.jisho.org/search/に満ち #sentences
beta.jisho.org/search/で満ち #sentences
Hopefully these aren't urlised at all, so can copy-paste into the address bar instead. ^^ - Okay, that didn't work properly either, nevermind. >_<
- Alright, I've come up with a clever work-around. These links will actually work...
"に満ち":
http://beta.jisho.org/search/%E3%81%AB%E6%BA%80%E3%81%A1%20%23sentences
"で満ち":
http://beta.jisho.org/search/%E3%81%A7%E6%BA%80%E3%81%A1%20%23sentences - Yes, Mog, the phrase is from FF12 ahaha :P
I picked this sentence here: http://www.finalfantasy.jp/discography/#ff12
Maybe you'll understand better if you read the rest of the text.
Ah, and thank you very much, guys, really!! :-)
- The rest of that text is actually pretty interesting, the way it is written. There are some interesting terms used like 飛びかう (飛び交う) meaning 'fly about, flit about, fly past each other' when talking about the airships (飛空艇), and a few other things. The vocabulary used is close to what a level 6 JCJP user should already recognise. It would be nice if the JCJP Readings articles were more interesting to read like this short text, instead of fragmented news articles.
Also, on the topic of the に particle, I was re-reading the same grammar book I was mainly reading yesterday. This time I noticed it clearly says for one of the roles of the に particle: "an instrumental particle, denoting agency or cause". I think this instrumental role might be how it is used in the sentence, but still not completely sure. ^^; - oh, i knew that about に for the longest. if you say you are playing music with a flute, for instance, you'd say [flute] に [playing]. it doesn't mean you are playing inside of the flute, but using the flute as an instrument to play. that use is taught pretty early, in most grammar books, i'm surprised you are unfamiliar with it. but was that really the only problem in understanding the sentence? it seemed like the problem was larger than that.
- Kind of, but 'to play a flute' is actually: フルートを吹く (to blow a flute).
This is like how 'to play football (soccer)' is actually サッカーをする (to do soccer), not something like サッカーを遊ぶ.
Also, to say something along the lines of use the flute to play a song, you would probably say フルートで not フルートに.
I haven't done any proper studying of Japanese grammar for months, as I've been interested in other stuff like learning 2000 kanji in Slime Forest Adventure, and just doing other things. My memory of the basics is kinda mushy at the moment. :P - 遊ぶ is obviously intransitive anyway, so that phrase looks very wrong. :D
- Here's a more interesting sentence in the Tanaka Corpus showing particles and verbs used with playing a flute:
http://beta.jisho.org/sentences/51867096d5dda7e9810123f6
I can't even think at the moment how to construct a sentence using fluteに+[verb] to mean playing a flute. (?) - you are probably right, i just remember being taught that 'ni' is sometimes used to show the instrument you do something with, and a musical instrument was used as an example (it may not have been the flute, could have been anything).
- Different instruments use different verbs:
trumpet を 吹く【ふく】(blow the trumpet)
drums を 叩く【たたく】(beat the drums)
guitar を 弾く【ひく】(twang[?] the guitar)
piano を 弾く (same verb as for playing guitar!)
Just thought this might be interesting to add. ^^
