について - Grammar Discussion

Grammar Points
#3

In example #9, “I will give you the documents regarding the details.”, the official answer is:
詳細について書いてある書類をお渡しします。

I entered についての, and it was marked wrong. But isn’t “書いてある書類” a noun (or noun phrase, or whatever it’s supposed to be called, with a verb modifying a noun, so essentially a noun)?

Reading the English translation, it seems more clear that it’s a Noun ‘regarding’ another Noun, which is why I thought that would be the right way to answer it. But maybe I’m missing something distinct about Japanese grammar that makes it work differently?

Any tips? Is there an issue with the example, or is it just my misunderstanding?

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Do people notice replies to existing posts in this forum category?
#4

I just checked with a Japanese friend and she said it was unnatural. I personally thought it was OK too so I’ve learned something today. Sorry I can’t explain the grammar because until now I thought your answer was ok :joy:

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#5

Thanks. :slight_smile:

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#6

Is anyone able to clarify why についての is unnatural in that example? I had the same assumption about the answer as wct, and I’m having a hard time understanding why it was wrong.

Is についての ALWAYS wrong before nouns that are modified by verbs, or is there another rule that determines which nouns take についての? Or is this particular sentence just a weird exception?

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#7

To me the version with についての sounds like we’re talking about documents that were written by someone (書いてある書類) and also, independently, concern the details (詳細についての書類) because with the の it can only modify the next noun directly. I’m not Japanese though.

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#8

@nekoyama @gillian-faith @wct @matt_in_mito

When a verb follows, について should be generally used.
についての modifies a noun or noun phrase. So:

詳細について書いてある書類をお渡しします OK (verb follows)

詳細についての書類をお渡しします OK (noun follows)

詳細について短い書類をお渡しします OK (noun phrase 短い書類 follows)

Generally, those noun phrases are short and made from one いadjective or なadjective modifying noun. (because longer noun phrases are kind of hard to understand)
Like:

についての一般的な説明

についての簡単な説明

についての詳しい説明

You can sometimes, of course, see についてのnoun phrase with a verb (rarely compared to について + verb)
後の文では特別な様子や状況についての話す人の観察を言う。
but many speakers will think of them as unnatural, and instead, would advise to change that についての to について.
後の文では特別な様子や状況について、話す人の観察を言う。

I hope it helps a bit :+1:
Cheers

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#9

Can someone elaborate on how this point differs from に関して? Thank you!

#10

I feel like に関して sounds really formal. If a friend said it to me it would feel weird. :joy:

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#11

Hey @dokidokiwakuwaku !

The meaning of について and に関して are basically the same. Like @matt_in_mito mentioned, に関して sounds more formal, but both of them are often times used in formal writing/speaking.

Although they both mean the same thing, there are situations where using one could make the sentence sound unnatural. For example, when a sentence is an ‘either-or’ type of sentence, について sounds natural and に関して does not.

Another difference is in how に関して can become 〜に関しての＋ Noun or 〜に関する＋ Noun when a noun comes after it, but 〜について＋ Noun can only become 〜についての＋ Noun and not 〜につく＋ Noun .
We hope this helps!

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#12

@Fuga さすがいつも私たちに良い説明してくれています！

Adding on here, do について and に対して share the same meaning of “concerning/regarding” and then に対した can also has the added nuance of contrast?

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#13

If I could take the conversation back to the sentence about the documents, what does 書いてある mean for this sentence? The translation is “I will give you the documents about the details,” but I can’t see what the difference would be if there were no「書いてある」in there.

Thanks :slight_smile:

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#14

They do share a similar meaning of ‘concerning/regarding’, but they have a slight difference in nuance. について just means ‘in regards to’, but as the kanji 対 in に対して suggests ‘contrast’, it is used when two things are of equal focus and the speaker is explaining how those things compare and contrast.

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#15

Hey there!

書いてある translates to ‘written’!

It is 書く conjugated using this this grammar point!

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#16

I’m quite confused by the についての + noun construction: I always understood this construction to come from につく in the て-form, but as such it should be no issue to put noun straight after it without needing a linking word.

Basically in my mind grammatically I would have expected について to work like そして, it effectively ends the proposition and then another one starts, something like:

防災について、講習会に参加してください

But apparently I need:

防災についての講習会に参加してください

Are there other situations where the て-form of a verb would be linked with の like this?

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#17

It does. And you can put a noun right after it if you don’t want to connect it to について.

With の, the phrase with について modifies the noun. In the sentence 防災についての講習会に参加してください, we’re asked to attend a 防災についての講習会 “a course about disaster prevention”.

Without the の, it’s the verb that would be “about disaster prevention” which sounds funny to me because you can’t “attend about disaster prevention”. But with other verbs it works, e.g. you can 防災について話す “talk about disaster prevention”.

There is one other grammar point I can think of that bunpro has, which is あっての. I checked some other likely ones but bunpro seems to tend to teach the non-て-form options if they are more common, for example に対する over に対しての, and に関する over に関しての, and so on.

In general terms, verbてのnoun means that the noun is a result of verbing, the verb is a necessary precondition for the noun. So AがあってのB means that B is the result of A existing, which the grammar point explains in more reasonable English. But with について, even Japanese dictionaries tend to have a separate definition for 就く specifically for this usage.

There are a bunch of other cases that you’ve probably seen but that aren’t taught as grammar points in this sense, for example 全て or 見ての通り. You can also find examples by googling random likely expressions like 食べての体…

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Why can this sentence use の
#18

Ooh, I see. They makes a lot of sense in hindsight, thank you for making it click!

Amazing explanation, thanks! I actually never realized that 全て was 総て before, so 全ての didn’t bother me, but that’s a great example.

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#19

Also the first question I asked myself when I saw this grammar point. Does anyone have any insight into the nuance between は and について specifically? I don’t think it’s been answered elsewhere in this thread.

#20

「について」と「は」について：

Hopefully someone with deeper knowledge of the language will chime in but I think this confusion only arises because sometimes people translate Japanese は as “regarding X” or “concerning X” etc… which are also translations for について.

But that’s kind of misleading in this case because we only translate は that way when we want to emphasize the grammatical role of は in a sentence. It’s rarely the proper way to translate it into English. For instance you would only translate 彼は日本人です as “regarding him, he’s Japanese” if you were looking to really break down the grammar, it’s not a correct and natural translation of the Japanese. A more natural translation would simply be “he’s Japanese”.

On the other hand 彼について、日本人です would actually mean “on the topic of him, he’s Japanese” or something to that effect. It’s a lot more “forceful” and literal as a way to set the topic.

As an example you look at the titles for this podcast for beginners: https://nihongoconteppei.com/

You’ll see that many of them end with について:

１２月に勉強をすることについて！

自分の時間について！

So basically は is often said to “set the topic” but that’s in a grammatical sense, most of the time it will be translated as the grammatical subject or object of the sentence in English.

Meanwhile について sets the topic in a literal sense, like literally saying out loud “the topic is X”.

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#21

I just encountered this sentence in the wild that showcases both について and は:

ことみくんは私について何か言っていたかね

If you translate very literally:

As for (は) kotomi-kun, on the subject of (について) me, did he say something?

But in a less literal translation you’d probably just say:

Did kotomi-kun say something about me?

The は kind of disappears in this translation and kotomi-kun becomes the grammatical subject, but the について is still present in the “about”.

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#22

I’m a bit confused about the “rare Kanji” listed on this page. Near the top it says “Rare Kanji 付いて” but then near the bottom it says:

“It is rare to see について actually using the kanji 就. について itself is regularly considered as a single compound word, rather than a combination of its parts.”

I think at the top they mean that the rare Kanji is 就いて but obviously as a learner I’m not sure. Do I have that right? Only relevant for reading vs. speaking, but still maybe a small error.