# 望むところだ



## 82riceballs

Hi all,

Apparently the phrase 望むところだ means "Just as I was hoping for," in English, but I am having difficulty understanding why ><
What does ところ　mean here?? Could you please translate this phrase literally for me?

Thank you so much!!!


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## Flaminius

Tokoro is literally "place" and often used as the head of a relative clause.


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## 82riceballs

Thanks! Can you give me any other examples where it is used this way?


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## OED Loves Me Not

Other examples of this kind of "ところ"


> 「思う*ところ*あって辞任する」「自分の信じる*ところ*を貫く」
> 「うわさの出*どころ*」「つかみ*どころ*のない人」


Source: http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/158611/m0u/

This forum does not allow us to quote too much text 
from books or websites.  I suggest you click the above 
link to find other examples you might feel interested in.

I think you can find even more examples in other 
Japanese dictionaries on the Net by googling 
the keywords "ところ" together with "辞書."


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## 810senior

I guess 望むところだ can be translated in a more understandable way like this: "that's *what *I'm hoping for" meaning "bring it on!" or "come on!" in English.


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## 82riceballs

Thanks guys!

I'm just a little confused about this:
What does this mean?? 「思う*ところ*あって辞任する」 
Does 「自分の信じる*ところ*を貫く」 mean "to persist with *what *you believe in"?

Thank you all so much!!


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## OED Loves Me Not

> (1) 私は、思う*ところ*あって辞任した。


　　　　　(1-a) Literal translation:
　　　　　　　I resigned because there was *something that* I had been considering.

　　　　　(1-b) Hopefully more idiomatic translations:
　　　　　　　I resigned for a good reason.
　　　　　　　I resigned to pursue something that I had in mind.
　　　　　　　I resigned because there was something on my mind.
　　　　　　　I resigned because I wanted to do something else.
　　　　　　　I resigned for my personal reasons.

　　　　In any case, this expression (思うところあって) is very vague.  Japanese people love 
　　　　to be vague.  They use these kinds of expressions to avoid specifying why exactly 
　　　　they did what they're saying they did.  Personally, I hate this kind of ambiguous talk.



> (2) Does 「自分の信じる*ところ*を貫く」 mean "to persist with what you believe in"?


　　　　　You're absolutely right.


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## YangMuye

ところ was used as the literal translation of a Classical Chinese passive marker 所, just as the 所 in some other phases like 所有 (あらゆる), 所為 (せい), 所詮 (しょせん), etc.
It actually works more like a _pronoun_ that refers to the _object_ of the verb. So 信じるところ is literally _what *is* believed_.

But when I looked it up in the dictionary, I found


> ㋑《西洋語の関係代名詞の翻訳から、格助詞「の」を介して、体言またはそれに準じるものを修飾して》連体修飾語の役割をする。多く翻訳調の文章に用いられる。「世に知られている―の画家」「かつて訪れた―の屋敷」


Apparently, 世に知られている is already in the passive form; the ところ is superfluous. After all, Japanese has a rich voice system which does not really need ところ, so I think the choice of using ところ is more of a stylistic thing.



> What does this mean?? 「思うところあって」


Literally: having something that is thought about
Better: having considered something/ having thought of something / for a reason


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## OED Loves Me Not

YangMuye said:


> ところ was used as the literal translation of a Classical Chinese *passive marker 所*, just as the 所 in some other phases like 所有 (あらゆる), 所為 (せい), 所詮 (しょせん), etc.


I'm not quite versed in classical Chinese, but I can't 
help wondering if the character 所 is really a "passive" marker.
Isn't the concept of passivity just a borrowing from Western thinking?
Neither in Chinese nor in Japanese had there existed that concept 
before Western thinking was introduced into ours.  That's what 
I think.  Or it just my imagination?

I always thought that the concept 所 literally means "the place" and 
is then extended to function something that could be interpreted 
as something similar to a relative pronoun "what" or "that which" 
in Western languages.  And the verb following the word 所
is actually not part of a passive voice but it is actually in active voice.

For example, 所有 means, I believe, "what one has."  The word 
所詮 means something along the lines of "what it boils down to."
所与 means "what one gives" or "what it gives."  

If Chinese grammarians say that this word 所 as in 所与 and 所詮
is a passive marker, it must be because they consider it convenient
to explain it that way when translating Western thinking into their 
own language.  But I suspect that 所与 actually means "what one (or it) 
gives", instead of "what is given." And of course, in Chinese, you 
don't mention the doer of the giving (= the subject).  

Am I expressing myself clearly enough, I wonder?


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## YangMuye

You are absolutely right.

There are people who insist Chinese did not have *true* passive voice as Chinese verbs do not congregate at all. How do you know it is not active but passive?
They argue 所 (place) is a formal noun, and 見 (to see or to experience, as in _身に受ける。経験する。「痛い目をみる」_) and 被 (＝受ける ) are verbs.

In most cases, people just cannot just find a direct counterpart in one language for a construction in another one. For example,


> 心焉に在らざれば、視れども見えず、聴けども聞こえず、食らえどもその味を知らず


In our mind, 視, 聴 and 食 are actions you can control, while 見, 聞 and 知 are not. So the latter group are naturally understood as 可能形 or 受身形, even though we do not use the _potential voice_.
I can see how Japanese scholars struggled to translate this line, because 不見 and 不聞 are normally read (訓読) as 見ず and 聞かず, but that would sound ridiculous in this context.


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## 810senior

In general we don't ever think ところ is a passive marker but we think it's just a head of the relative clause as shown in the definition of the dictionary even though it referred to the passive voice in translated sentence from Chinese.
It also reminds me of a fixed phrase in traditional Chinese 為A所B(In Japanese AのBする*所*となる, lit.It becomes *the place* where A(noun) B(verb), which simply means "[omitted subject] is Bed by A(AにBされる)".


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## 82riceballs

OED Loves Me Not said:


> For example, 所有 means, I believe, "what one has."  The word
> 所詮 means something along the lines of "what it boils down to."
> 所与 means "what one gives" or "what it gives."



Wow I have never thought of these this way.

THank you all for this enlightening conversation on ところ


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## OED Loves Me Not

Hi, riceballs!  Although you may already know this, 
I'd like to add some information about these expressions.

所有 is, in 漢文, read (or rather, literally translated) 
as 有（ゆう）する所 (ところ), which literally means 
"what one (or it or he or whatever) has."  That's why 
it is usually translated as "one's possession(s)" as a noun
or as "to own" as a verb.

所詮 is literally translated as "詮 (せん）ずる所 (ところ),"
which literally means "what it (or he or one or whatever) 
boils down to."  In today's Japanese, it is interpreted as 
"after all, in the end, anyway." 

所与 is literally translated as "与（あた）ふる所 (ところ),"
which literally means "what it (or one or whatever) gives."
This expression is, I believe, usually interpreted as 
"given" as if an adjective, as in the example of 
"所与 (しょよ) の条件".


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## 82riceballs

Wowww..... this is so fascinating, thank you!!!!


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