Super ﾁーｽﾞﾃﾞー!

[confusionary9335]

This is kind of silly, but in the first line of the image above what does "ことやります" mean? I think that やる is "to give", but I don't understand the meaning of こと before it. I have learned that こと is a nominalizer, but I don't know if that is how it is being used here. (It doesn't look like what I have learned, but I'm still in the beginner series.) Could it also mean "thing" in this context? If anyone could explain what is going on here I would appreciate it!

ありがとうございます！

ジェイソン

[ericf]

ジェイソンさん、こんにちは。

やる to give? or to do (the casual form of する)? Not sure.

十月、ロッテリアがすごいことやります。

Well, I think it's quite casual, やる instead of する (if I'm right about that) and skipping the は and を too.
十月は、ロッテリアがすごいことをやります。

--> "In October, Lotteria are doing (or giving) something amazing"

So, yes, こと is the thing in "something".

エリック

[Jessi]

Yes, the やります here is the one meaning "to do" (the casual form of します, as was said earlier).

So "In October, Lotteria is doing something amazing" is the correct translation

[confusionary9335]

ありがとうございます, エリックさん and Jessi!

One more newbie question: why is it "is doing" rather than "will do"? Isn't the -te form required for that?

[Jessi]

Hello again confusionary-san,
You bring up a good point
Yes, the very literal translation is something like "In October, Lottera will do an amazing thing". やります = will do. You're right!

I think Eric and I came up with "is doing something" as a much more natural way to say it in English (what you might find in an ad in English, for example). If you think about it, though, this is also talking about the future in English, especially with the "in October" at the front.

[mmmason8967]

One more newbie question: why is it "is doing" rather than "will do"? Isn't the -te form required for that?

You're right: the -te form is used when somebody "is doing" something right now, as in sakana-o tabete iru, or "I'm eating fish" (even as we speak). But as Jessi says, in English "is doing" can be used for the future as well as the present, usually where there's a definite, decided plan. For example:-

Bob Dylan is doing a tour of the USA right now.

Eric Clapton is doing a tour of the UK in May 2013.

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[confusionary9335]

That makes sense. Thanks!

ジェイソン

[mmmason8967]

That makes sense. Thanks!

ジェイソンさん

On the contrary, thanks for posting the advertisement! This kind of thing is always fascinating, especially the ones like this where you can figure out what it means but don't quite get how it works. Since it's an advertisement, you know for sure that it's deliberately designed to be easily understood by Japanese speakers, so whatever makes it work must be worth finding out.

I was especially taken with Jessi's translation because it succeeded in translating the Japanese non-past tense into something that is pretty much an English non-past tense. Once you have a good example in your own language, it's so much easier to see how it works--and, presumably, how it feels to a Japanese speaker. I'd always thought that 'non-past' was a bit vague and ambiguous as to whether it's talking about the present or the future, but this example shows that in fact it really isn't like that at all.

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