# クラスの中にいくつか集団があり、集団の一員として皆と同じような



## Kuma777

I'm having a little trouble with a sentence I was given to translate.
The sentence is;

クラスの中にいくつか集団があり、集団の一員として皆と同じようなことをしていさえすれば問題はない。

The translation I was given was;

'There is no problem as long as there are several groups in a class and you do the same thing as other members of you group.' 

 - They've kept it as literal as possible so that it reflects as accurately as possible the grammar of the original.

My problem was I initially thought you would translate 'クラスの中にいくつか集団があり' first and then the rest, I didn't realize that was also part of the relative clause on 問題. 

Is the way of telling that it's all a relative clause because 問題 is marked with は and so the topic, everything before it being a relative clause? And because 集団 is only marked with が. 

Or is it because they aren't separated by て form but the verb stem 連用形 (but I thought these had the same meaning)?

Any help is appreciated.


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## ms291052

I'm afraid that I don't see any relative clauses modifying 問題. If we break the sentence up into clauses I see it as

クラスの中に いくつか集団があり、 集団の一員として　皆と同じようなことを　していさえすれば　問題はない.
In class, several groups exist, as a member of one group, the same as everyone, at least doing if, problems will not exist

In my mind, the part before the comma is essentially background information, and my as well be in a different sentence. Then we continue with one big "if" clause, followed by 問題はない, but the 問題 are not modified in any way; they're just your normal, average 問題.


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## Yabanjin

Kuma777 said:


> I'm having a little trouble with a sentence I was given to translate.
> The sentence is;
> 
> クラスの中にいくつか集団があり、集団の一員として皆と同じようなことをしていさえすれば問題はない。
> 
> The translation I was given was;
> 
> 'There is no problem as long as there are several groups in a class and you do the same thing as other members of you group.'


That's not a good translation. It should be something like
There are several groups in the class, and if you, as a member of a group, just do the same things as the others, there will be no problems.​


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## Kuma777

You are 100% correct. Sorry I guess what I meant was how to know how much is part of a conditional form. The problem I have with the translation is that it implies that there isn't a problem if there's groups in the class and that every does the same. So the condition being that both must be true for there not to be a problem. (At least that's my understanding).

However I like you think that the クラスの中に いくつか集団があり is separate and not part of the one big 'if'....but the translation from my teacher implies otherwise and that what I don't understand. 

I think I should change my thread title to 'Knowing when the conditional form begins and ends'


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## Yabanjin

Kuma777 said:


> However I like you think that the クラスの中に いくつか集団があり is separate and not part of the one big 'if'....but the translation from my teacher implies otherwise and that what I don't understand.





Kuma777 said:


> I think I should change my thread title to 'Knowing when the conditional form begins and ends'


Or maybe "Is it time to get a new teacher?"


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## rukiak

Hi Kuma san.

Your teacher's translation seems no problem ,though that seems not a direct translation.

You can also read "クラスの中にいくつか集団があり" as a present fact, but even if so, you can ,and occasionally need to, include the clause in the conditional clause.

Besides, "as long as" that your teacher used, is gramatically not same in the meaning as "if", I think. It can include the present fact, and...sorry I can't teach you  English grammer.


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## Biel Isern

Though I am not an english native I would translate this sentence as follows. Hope I can help.

There are several groups in a class, and you as a member of a group won't have any problem as long as you act as everyone else.


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## Starfrown

rukiak said:


> You can also read "クラスの中にいくつか集団があり" as a present fact, but even if so, you can ,and occasionally need to, include the clause in the conditional clause.


You are, of course, absolutely right. I remember that when I first started reading serious Japanese, one of the things I was struck by--and still am--was just how difficult it was in some cases to determine clause and phrase boundaries. The best advice I can give the poster is to exercise discretion.



rukiak said:


> Besides, "as long as," which your teacher used, is grammatically not the same in the meaning as "if", I think. It can include the present fact, and...sorry I can't teach you English grammar.


"As long as" is a fairly standard translation of the combination _sae sureba_, I think. A more literal translation, as some of the others have pointed out, is "if...just/only." "As long as" has a strictly temporal meaning (i.e. "during the entire time that"), but has two prominent uses as a conjunction, one of those being the introduction of a causal clause (i.e. "since"), the other the introduction of a proviso clause (i.e. "provided that"); both of these are extensions of the temporal reading. The proviso reading "provided that" is virtually indistinguishable in meaning from "if...just" because both specify the sole condition that must be fulfilled before the action or state specified in the main clause can come to fruition.



Yabanjin said:


> Or maybe "Is it time to get a new teacher?"


His teacher may be a non-native speaker of English and may not realize that including "there are several groups in the class" in the "as long as" clause results in an odd reading. If he/she is indeed a native speaker...then it may be time to consider the answer to your question.  (Of course, I don't think I'd dump my teacher over so minor an issue as this.)


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## Yabanjin

rukiak said:


> Your teacher's translation seems no problem ,though that seems not a direct translation.


Without context it's difficult to say, but if it was so I would expect some kind of indicator, like
もしクラスの中にいくつか集団があり、集団の一員として皆と同じようなことをしていさえすれば問題はない。 


> You can also read "クラスの中にいくつか集団があり" as a present fact, but even if so, you can ,and occasionally need to, include the clause in the conditional clause.


If that is a present fact, it can't go into the conditional clause.


> Besides, "as long as" that your teacher used, is gramatically not same in the meaning as "if", I think. It can include the present fact


"As long as" stops it from being a present fact. There is no difference between "if" and "as long as" on that score.


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## rukiak

Thank you for your information and correction, Starfrown. Your explanation about the grammar is very useful.



Yabanjin said:


> Without context it's difficult to say, but if it was so I would expect some kind of indicator, like
> もしクラスの中にいくつか集団があり、集団の一員として皆と同じようなことをしていさえすれば問題はない。


I agree with your opinion,Yabanjin, though it may not be exactly the same as yours.  
This issue is not good from the begging.
I dislike the Japanese sentense like "クラスの中にいくつか集団があり、集団の一員として皆と同じようなことをしていさえすれば問題はない。". 
If I were the teacher, I wouldn't use such an ambiguous Japanese. (And if it were a sentence of a speach which I'm listening to, I would confirm the meaning, if it is necessary.)





Yabanjin said:


> If that is a present fact, it can't go into the conditional clause.
> 
> "As long as" stops it from being a present fact. There is no difference between "if" and "as long as" on that score.


I meant that there are some cases *in Japanese* that;
firstly, they say the fact as a background information
and seondly, they say a conditional clause using the said information as proviso.(So the information is used doubly.)

eg. when the information (which is supposed to be proviso) is fragile and not sure to be effective in the near future, people use the information in double meaning (fact and assumption). 

Of course in that case, all interested parties must share the context.

Even in that situation above, the translation
'There is no problem as long as there are several groups in a class and you do the same thing as other members of you group.'
is wrong *in English*?
______________________________________________________________
ps. "information is fragile" is a good English?


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