Trial (line 1-4)

[Justin]

AJBryant wrote:

トニーは日本語をマスターする一歩手前です。
Tony is within inches of mastering Japanese.

自分の夢の中に，ね。:p

Tony

I thought you might get a kick out of that.

[ss]

I'm trying to imagine what's going on at the "rest area" there, something funny must be bursting out !

My first imagination was, something (obstacle like minor construction/renovation) was blocked in front of the tiolet, so, no choice had to use the next one.
前に、前面に = before, in front , right ?

But 手前の個室はふさがっていたので , sounds like someone actually walked forward to this toilet and tried to pull open the door, then realised it was locked, so, no choice had to use the one next to it.

imagination running wild I think @.@ !! Thanks Justin-san for explaining.

[Harisenbon]

Sorry to be coming in late, my job has been hectic with all the kids graduating.

I think that everyone has a fairly good grip on the sentence, and Justin provided a very good explanation of 手前 (not てめぇ )

I just want to double back on the usage of ふさがっていた in this sentence. Although this means blocked, in this case it is not that the toilet is stopped up, but rather that someone is in the stall. A number of people thought that the toilet might have been stopped up or something, so I just wanted to put that out there.

[spoiler]Because the stall in front of me was occupied, I went into the one next to it.[/spoiler]

[AJBryant]

I just want to double back on the usage of ふさがっていた in this sentence. Although this means blocked, in this case it is not that the toilet is stopped up, but rather that someone is in the stall. A number of people thought that the toilet might have been stopped up or something, so I just wanted to put that out there.

I was thinking about mentioning this yesterday.

The key giveaway for readers as to which "English" verb is intended should be that the subject was the 個室, not the 便所器.

Tony

[richvh]

Since both Group A members have commented, shall we ask Coco-san for the next sentence?

[Sachi]

I just wanted to say:

I'm going away for the weekend, so I won't be able to contribute (I have a lot of homework to finish also.) Sorry, and hopefully see you all soon!

[coco]

I should wait for more 3-4 hours, but I'm sorry that I won't have a time to post new sentence today(USA time).so I'm going to show line 3 now.

Many thanks to Rich-san,SS-san,Justin-san,Hari-san,Natemb-san, and Tony-chan. I really appreciate your thoughtful consideration for all participants.

Sachi-san, thanks for telling us about your situation. Hope see you soon.

[Txkun]

My try:
[spoiler]
At that time, as I was on my hips on the urinal,
from next door there was a whisper "Ahh, are you ok?"
[/spoiler]

This time I did't understand much so here there are some doubts I have.

[spoiler]
下ろそうとした - from orosu and what? I don't know this costruction at all.

隣から「やあ、元気？」と声がしたのです -
I saw in the past the 'to' particle used with verb iu. Here instead verb is desu that I thought is connecting the two nouns 'koe' and 'shita no'. I tried to guess that 'shita no' may be, since we are talking about a voice, a whisper. But this is a wild guess.
[/spoiler]

[Justin]

lol, this story just keeps on getting more interesting everytime a new sentence comes out. When I get back home here to someplace where I can use Japanese, I'll try and whip up a quick vocab/grammar list, that is, if people found the last one to be of some help...or should we just wait to do that stuff later, and first let everyone have a try at it without any outside help?

[richvh]

Grammar hints:
[spoiler] 下ろそうとした
隣から「やあ、元気？」と声がしたのです[/spoiler]

[ss]

Coco-san wrote
Many thanks to Rich-san,SS-san,Justin-san,Hari-san,Natemb-san, and Tony-chan. I really appreciate your thoughtful consideration for all participants

Coco-san, thank you very much too for sticking close with us all the time though with a busy trip.

Justin-san, I think a quick vocab/grammer list is quite essential, it's hard to phrase the sentence to understandable english (for me, at least) , but sorry to trouble you.

[Justin]

Not a problem at all there Shirley Sia, I'm just happy that what I did there last time with the vocab/grammar list was of some help for you.

[zengargoyle]

i'll go with this:
[spoiler]just when i was getting down to business this voice came from the next stall: "yo, how 'ya doin'?".[/spoiler]



and a question...
[spoiler]便器に腰を下ろす -- squatting over a 'squat' toilet?[/spoiler]

[Justin]

Just some quick notes here before I head off here tonight...

[spoiler]便器 べんき
a toilet; 〔英〕a lavatory

腰 こし
waist; hips.
細い［太い］〜　((have)) a slender [large] waist.
〜の低い　modest; polite.
〜の弱い　《比喩的に》〔話〕weak-kneed.
〜の強いうどん　firm noodles.
〜が痛い　have a backache.
〜が重い　be slow to act.
〜が軽い　be ready to act.
〜を入れる　get down to ((doing)).
〜を下ろす　sit (down).
〜を据える　settle down.
〜を抜かす　lose one's legs; 《おじける》be scared.
〜を伸ばす　stretch oneself.
〜を曲げる　bend over [down].
話の〜を折る　interrupt a person.

下ろす おろす
take [bring, get, put] down; 《カーテンを》drop; 《錨を》cast; 《救命ボートを》lower; 《大根を》grate; 《胎児を》have an abortion.

下ろそうとする
volitional form +とする = to attempt to...

If you need some more help with the volitional for +とする form, Tae Kim has an excellent write up on it here

As for the のです part, again, I'd have to go with Tae Kim's explination at the bottom of this page here about using の as an explination.[/spoiler]

Thats about all I can do for now, hope that helps a bit.

[AJBryant]

Zengargoyle -- a little too liberal with the translation, there...


Tony