Plato's English in "Laws"

I was reading a philosophical sentence in English, which was quoted on twitter by someone, but I could not understand it well.

Athenian Stranger: Much sleep is not required by nature, for our souls or our bodies, for no one who is asleep is good for anything.

My friend on Lang-8, Lynkusu taught me what the sentence meant like below:

The first part of the sentence means "People naturally do not require a large amount of sleep".

The second part means "Neither our bodies nor our souls require too much sleep".

The last part means "Because when we're asleep we're not good for anything".

So, the sentence rewritten is "Neither our bodies nor souls naturally require a large amount of sleep, because when we're asleep we're not good for anything."

This new sentence made sense for me. So I also rewrote it into "Much sleep is not required by nature. Much sleep is not required for our souls or our bodies. Because when we're asleep we're not good for anything."

Sometimes it's hard for me to grasp the meaning of "for".

Math in English looks sharp for me

I've been learning English Math for kids to understand English logic. It's easy to get the meaning, and it's also often easy to understand the grammar, so I like to read it.

Recently I came across a math definition. It's about Perpendiculars in Math. The definition is, "at right angles to the horizon."

I think this definition is very concise and is a very English way of describing something.

I think that it would be able to be translated into Japanese like "水平線に対して、常に直角であること"(Always being a right angle against the horizontal line), yet the English definition is still more concise.

About "I was planning on going late."

I have a tiny theory about English grammar now. Before I show you it, please read an example below that has the question concerning the theory.

"And by the way, Mr.Godai!!"

"Y-Yes?"

"It's afternoon already! What about school?"

"I...uh...was planning on going late."

When I read this, I wondered why it wasn't "I planned on going late." I wondered which sentence was better or more natural in that situation, "I was planning on going late" or "I planned on going late"

I learned from a book on English grammar that present participles are used to refer to actual actions or states of someone, so, present participles are used to create a vivid description.

So, I supposed that "I was planning on going late" is emphasizing the actions of the planning of the past as a vivid description. So I didn't know well why the person had to emphasize it.

After I post this question on Lang-8, a SNS for the people who want to practice foreign language, my friend Lynkus gave me her answer about it.

Below is her answer to me:

"I was planning" is more natural. It's not emphases. I suppose it's kind of submissive. If someone finds out you were going to do something they didn't want you to do and confronts you, you say "I was planning ~", and it usually implies that, because you were found out, you'll now change your plans.

Below is my question for that.

What is the difference between using "I planned" and "I was planning" in the situation? I think it relates to the situation that sometimes you choice "I am(was)" but the other times you choice "I do(did)".

So, please answer these questions below with using "I am" or "I do" which is more natural.

"Why didn't you come to the place?"'(You were busy then.)

"Which college did you plan to go?"(Answer with using "I planed" or "I was planning" which is more natural)

Lynkusu answered me below:

Her answer for "What is the difference between using "I planned" and "I was planning" in the situation?":

I planned" would be submissive, too, but "I was planning" just sounds better, more natural. I don't know why, it just... is. :|

Her answer for "Why didn't you come to the place?"':

You'd say "I was busy", you'd never say "I was being busy."

If a sudden change in plans prevented you from going, the most natural thing to say would be "I was planning to go, but ~". "I planned" could work too, but "I was planning" is better.

Her answer about "Which college did you plan to go?":

If you actually went to the college in question, you'd just say "I went to ~."

If you didn't... then I don't think it would actually make a difference whether you said "I planned" or "I was planning." In this situation, I think "I planned" might be slightly preferable. Maybe.

The most natural answer would just be to omit "I planned/was planning" altogether and just say the name of the college.

My answer for her:

After all, you thought that "I was planning ~" is more natural if you were blamed by someone like, "It's afternoon already! What about school?" or "Why didn't you come to the place?". Then you were submissive and you would choice saying "I was ~", right?

Right now, I also begin to think that "I was planning ~" is more natural and is submissive. If I say "I planned on going late" as the reply, it's as if I'm just telling my insistence to the person.

It's like,

"It's afternoon already! What about school?"

"I planned on going late. (It's what I decided before, so it's not your business!)."

If I say below:

"It's afternoon already! What about school?"

"I was planing on going late. (Oh, sorry. But I just decided going late before you told that)."

Thus it's more submissive or polite.

Her answer for me:

Yeah, I think that might be it. It depends on how you say it, too, of course, but generally, that's probably right. If you say "I was planning ~" strongly and firmly with confidence, it might imply that you in fact have no intentions of changing your plans.

My answer for her:

I thought about the conversation again as below:

"What are you doing! It's time you should be studying!"

"I was planning on studying late".

(↑ This looks he is just trying to tell his situation)

"I planned on studying late"

(↑ This looks he is justifying himself)

I think that "is, are, am" are used for telling one's state or situation, so it's more static than the other verbs like "plan", which is rather active or voluntary.

This difference would make the difference between the two sentences.

Then our discussion was over.

Before I had the discussion with her, a present particle was just used for creating a vivid situation to be told for someone. But, it was not enough explanation for the function.

As Lynkusu mentioned above, "I was planning on going late" could be more submissive than "I planned on going late".

I think that "I was planning" is like more describing a situation so it's not emphasizing or stressing his rightness. So it looks submissive.

"I planned" is like more justifying his choice so he is arguing for the person who told him "It's afternoon already! What about school?"

Why the difference is there is from the difference between "is, am, are" and the other verbs like "plan, decide, choice" which is more active or voluntary than the former.

I look forward to installing a new OS on my computer

My current OS is Ubunutu, which is a Linux OS. Since I removed Windows XP from my computer 3 years ago, I keep on using Ubuntu.

Now I can't use my webcam on Skype with ubuntu for some reason I don't know. So, I think that if I upgrade my Ubuntu with the new version, the problem might be fixed.

I hope I will be able to talk on skype with my webcam in the future.

Here the link to the OS. http://www.ubuntu.com/

(This essay is the corrected version of my diary that is on "lang-8".
http://lang-8.com/73855/journals/456964

A native speaker Lynkusu on Lang-8 kindly corrected me)

Below is the Japanese version:

私が今使ってるコンピュータのOSはUbuntuで、リナックスの一種です。３年前にWindows XPを削除して以来、ずっとUbuntuを使い続けています。

今、Ubuntuで、スカイプでウェブカメラを使うことができずにいます。理由はよくわかりません。Ubuntuをアップグレードしたら、この不具合が治るかもしれないと思ってます。

アップグレードした後で、Ubuntuでウェブカメラが使えるようになっていれば、いいのですが。

Why do English speakers put the word "of" into "I think OF him"?

I find it interesting that native English speakers add the words "with me" or "on me" when starting something like "I have some money". In Japanese we do not say these words when we want to say "I have some money". For example, we just say "お金がある" (okane ga aru) or "お金をもっている"(Okane wo motteiru)　when we want to pay for our own food at restaurant. Both of them can be translated literaly into "I have some money", so the words "with me" or "on me" are not included.

I think that in the English language it's common to add words after verbs like "with me" in the sentence "I have some money -with me". Also, we don't understand why, in English, the word "Of" is added into the phrase "I think OF him". We just accept it but we don't really know why.

I suppose if you just say the words "I think him" then you would feel as if the sentence is incomplete. English speakers say things like "I think him a good person" or "I think he is a good person" it seems that people have the need to add words after the word "Think". So, I think saying "I think him" would sound strange to a native speaker. But if the "Of" is introduced to the sentence, then it doesn't mean like "I think him a good person" but it just means "I think of him". So native English speakers introduce the word "Of" into a sentence to express that you are thinking about them.

In Japanese we say "彼を思う(kare wo omou)" in place of "I think of him". If we translate it into English literally as a word for word translation, it would be "I think you". So Japanese people have a hard time understanding why the words "With me" or "Of" are included into these phrases.

I suppose we can understand beter if we think within ourselves as to why these words are added. In fact that adding words in like "Of" means you have feelings for the person. Or that you truely are thinking what you are saying. The sentence wouldn't make sense to just say "I think him" or it would be thoughtless.

(This essay is the corrected version of my diary which is in "lang-8". http://lang-8.com/73855/journals/231594

A native speaker Mr.AzumiRM kindly corrected it and teach me those right answers for my question about the word "Of" in the sentence "I think of him". So I just have written the corrected sentences by him and his answers into this essay.)

Japanese green tea with Japanese sweet "Anmitsu"

Today I went to a restaurant which serves Japanese green teas and Japanese sweets near my house.

This is the restaurant. In Japan, if you go to some restaurants which serves Japanese meal, you can get Japanese green tea freely. So we don't have much restaurants which serves Japanese green tea with charging money. So when we want to "drink" something in town, it means that we go to coffee shop (except for going to vending machine which serves canned drink).

I ordered "Anmitsu Hime"（あんみつ姫) which means "Princess of Bean Jam". We say Anmitsu as black bean jam. Anmitsu Hime has also a hot Japanese green tea.The name is 深むし茶。It means that "a deep roasted green tea".

Both of them were delicious.The green tea smelled good. Anmitsu hime has not only the black bean jam also an ice cream and banana and pine apple and an agar.They matched well each other.

I drunk and ate them alone but someday I want to go to the restaurant with someone who I love haha.

送信者 Yojiro Fukuda

送信者 Yojiro Fukuda

Swimming with two kids

I teach some 2 kids as their teacher.I taught them how to write composition and Kanji(Chinese characters), and English.

When I taught English to them,I show the English words which used in TV games like "Super Mario Brothers" because they like it. So I thought that the best teaching for them was to learn what they like or they are good at. I always think that the best way to teach them is to build their strength more. They are already good at playing TV games, writing Kanji, saying plain English words, etc, so I have to put something important onto their strength.

By they way, recently I taught them also how to swim.They said that they couldn't do breathing in and out of water, so I taught them it.How to breath in swimming is simple, you just "exhale" when you're in water, and just before you're above water you quit the exhaling, at last when you're above the water you again "exhale" quickly so you can get to "inhale" automatically.So, how to inhale is to do exhale.I taught them it.

They understood it well soon when we're in a pool.After that, I tried to teach them how to swim the crawl but it's difficult.So I enjoy playing with them in a more deep length pool.I hold their body and run in the water rapidly. They looked enjoying with it.

Now Japan begins to be the rainy season. But soon we will meet the summer which has shiny days. I love summer so I look forward to it.