What does it mean in Japanese to say that a girl is a "mango"?
My Japanese teacher told me that it meant something bad but he wouldn't tell me what it means. :/

Hi all, it's me again. (Am I posting too much?)

Could anyone help me make sense of this sentence?

「小雨なので屯所まで歩いて行くことは出来るし、新撰組福長の名をあげれば傘ぐらい借りて帰れたが、そうしようとしなかったのはそういう気分だったからだろうか。」

I think I understand everything up to the second comma - something like "the rain was light so he could walk to the headquarters, in fact if he used his name as head of the Shinsengumi he could borrow an umbrella and return, but maybe he felt that そうしようとしなかった".

This そうしようとしなかった is what's puzzling me. I learned about the 〜しようとする pattern a while back (according to my book, it means "try to do something", but with a negative "tried but failed" nuance, like 「公園に出かけようとしたが雨が降った」), but I don't understand exactly what そうしようとしなかった is doing in this sentence. Does this mean he felt like he wouldn't be able to borrow an umbrella? Or does it mean he didn't feel like returning? Or something else?

Thanks for reading.

Hi all,

I have a question about the following sentence:

「人間が欲によって動いたがために消える森、そこにはもう何も無い。」

I think I understand what it's saying (something like "where stood the forest that disappeared because of men moved by greed, there was no longer anything"), but I don't understand what the second が is doing there from a grammatical standpoint. Shouldn't it be just 「動いたために」?

The sentence comes from this short story: ncode.syosetu.com/n0134d

Also, in another sentence from the same story...

「世界に足を伸ばす用になる」

... 用 is a typo, right? Should be 様(よう)?

Thank you very much for reading.

So, Passive form indicates the speaker's dissatisfaction with a circumstance, such as when your friend borrows your car. Causative indicates when the subject (not necessarily the speaker) is forced or made to do something, like when I make my son eat his vegetables. Finally, there's causative-passive which is apparently a melding of the two... Genki II describes CP as when the speaker has been forced or coerced into doing something, as my parents used to force me to do yard work (and I wasn't too happy about it).

My difficulty is in the nuance, and I don't quite understand specifically when it's appropriate to use Causative or Causative-Passive. Is C indicative only of the subject being forced?? And CP can also indicate this, but stress the subject's dissatisfaction?? I want to say 'context', but that seems such a lazy answer when I don't really understand how to apply the nuance.

Thanks for any help in advance.
deleted and edited after ~6:00 due to silly errors :P Sorry about that.
Edited 4/27: Thanks for those taking the time to reply, your help will be invaluable to me during my final, which is sure to present various forms of this grammar.

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to check my translation under the cut. I'm having a bit difficulty because I'm not very familiar with this type of text. But I gave it my best shot :)
I appreciate your help in advance.

( translation here... )

Just need to confirm- this sentence is slightly too complex for my rudimentary understanding.

「『新論』は，文政8 年（1825），会沢正志斎が主君徳川斉脩に対して意見を呈上するために執筆したものであった。国体（上・中・下）・形勢・虜情・守禦・長計の7 編からなり，国の内外における政治的な危機を乗り越え，富国強兵を実現するためには，人々の心をまとめる方法として尊王と攘夷が必要であると強く主張した。」

Specifically 「対して意見」- meaning that Aizawa was presenting an opposing opinion to Narinobu? 

Reason I'm asking is because this contradicts some of the other dissertations I've read on the Mito ideology written in English, and just wondering if this is because of my shoddy Japanese.

Thank you for your time.

Oh, and context!

Hello everyone. A complicated phrase by a complicated person which I still don't get even after his explanations:
戻ることが未来
Which is the subject in this phrase, is it the future itself or is there a person implied? I know modoru is an intransitive verb but knowing this person, he loves to play with words much. How do you translate it after all?
Here are his explanations, too:
戻ることが未来」って言ってるんやけど、その「戻る」場所は人それぞれ違ってええんですからね。
たとえば、人によっては、2日前の人もある。そうじゃなくて、2時間前っていう人もある。それぞれの「戻る」でええと思うんです。

Hi all,

Here are some words I came across more than once and for which WWWJDIC lists multiple readings. Could anyone clarify which reading is more common?

• 宝物: ほうもつ or たからもの?
  
• 梅雨: つゆ or ばいう?
  
• 悪口: あっこう or わるくち?
  
• 擦る (in the sense of "to rub one's eyes"): こする or する?
  
• 目標: もくひょう or めじるし? ("Breaking into Japanese Literature" has めじるし in furigana for this one, but I don't know if I can trust that book... my IME thinks it's the former.)
  
• 黒髪: くろかみ or こくはつ? (I'm inclined towards the former, but 金髪(きんぱつ) and 茶髪(ちゃぱつ) are very common...)
  

Thanks for reading.

Hello everybody,

could somebody help me make sense of these two sentences.

初(はじ)めのうちは冷呀(Reiga=name)は戦(たたか)って魔力(まりょく)が底(そこ)を突(つ)くと”眠(ねむ)り”についた

at first, Reiga’s magical power was wounded and that pushed him into “sleep”

安全(あんぜん)な場所(ばしょ)で魔力が回復(ふく)するまで眠る何百年という時をそれを繰り返していた

in a safe place he slept in order to restored his magical power, being called back every 100 years

thank in advance

On a website for a Drama CD, one of the characters is described as 主人公の義理の父, and then later on as 主人公の義理の父親。Obviously, they both mean 'step-father', but what's the difference in 'feeling' between the two? Is 父親 more formal than 父？ I'd always thought that 親/おや was slightly derogatory, like in 親父。