Hi guys, I was wondering if anyone would be able to help me with this grammar as I am utterly confused.
1.) 彼かれは食たべすぎたような、顔かおをしている。
2.) あなたが言いったように、事故が起おこった。
Why is ような used in the first sentence instead of ように like the second? They both have the same structure. If it is a verbal sentence, it should be noun + のように + verbal sentence as stated by Bunpro yet all the examples are to the contrary. I was of the understanding that ように is used when proceeded by a verbal phrase and ような when proceeded by a noun
E.G. そののような女性です " ＝ A girl like that"
"彼のように日本語を話したいです = I want to speak Japanese like him
The sentences above are both constructed in a way where the verbal phrases follow よう, so why is the first one ような? I can’t make sense of it. Please help
I’m not sure where this “verbal phrase” idea comes from. It’s just about what you want to modify.
In 1, he’s making a face that looks like he ate too much. The face is being modified with how it looks. This is a common way to say this sort of thing. Red face, having-overeaten-looking-face, same thing.
In 2, it’s the other way around. An accident happened, like you said. It’s not an accident that is like what you said.
“She is a girl that is like that” vs. “In this way, she’s a girl” (not sure what that means…).
“I want to speak Japanese like he does” vs. “I want to speak Japanese that is like that guy”.
It can sometimes be a bit tricky to figure out what something is supposed to modify. For some of it I just have a feel for what seems more right, but couldn’t tell you why that is, just that I’ve been corrected by great Japanese teachers on it.
So in the first example, the important bit that 食べすぎたよう is modifying is the face, because it isn’t that he generally is doing/behaving (する) like he ate too much, he’s making the face of someone having eaten too much.
Second example, is one of those that I can’t really explain because I don’t know why that one is focused on the verb rather than the accident. All I would say would be pure speculation, because I’ve gotten a feel for when in Japanese it would sound more natural to attach it to the verb (when I would have thought the noun).
The question to ask is, do you want to talk in Japanese like him or do you want to Japanese language like him (obviously correlating to English like this is not always helpful (long term) and just because it sounds awkward in English doesn’t mean it is in Japanese). So basically where is the focus, what is it that you want to say. Neither is grammatically incorrect. And I can’t really speak for the naturalness of it either. They focus on different things and it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t use both.
I think the most common meaning in that sentence would be trying to say you want to speak Japanese like him, and then it is に.
But I’m not an expert on Japanese grammar so I hope someone will say if I said something wrong here. ^^
This is probably the best explanation. Japanese is a very logical language. If something has a な it is modifying a noun. If it has a に it is modifying a verb.
1.) 彼かれは食たべすぎたような、顔かおをしている。
Because there is a な He is making a face (the な part just behaves like an adjective) I think the big separator is ‘reality’. With に it sounds like the person is trying to do something but they arent quite there yet. If this sentence had a に I would think maybe he didnt actually eat too much, or maybe he is trying to trick someone into thinking that he did. 食たべすぎたように （he is trying to appear that he ate too much… forwhatever reason). 食たべすぎたような（he ate too much, this is now his face, it’s a simple fact).
2.) あなたが言いったように、事故が起おこった。
Again this is referring something that the speaker didn’t originally say, so the ‘destination/reality’ so to speak isn’t where the speaker is, it’s where ‘you’ (the conversation partner) is. So we use に
