Quote:
Originally Posted by masaegu
Are you familiar with the structure of the relative clause in Japanese? 「自分の周りにある自然」 is a relative clause. In Japanese, the main noun of a relative clause comes at the very end of it while, in English, it comes at the beginning.
自分の周りにある自然 = the nature that exists around me.
私が昨日行ったレストラン = the restaurant that I went to yesterday
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I'm not sure this is a helpful way of explaining it to a non-native speaker. Heck, I still have problems with why 運営者である私 is considered correct while 運営者の私. Is it because 運営者 cannot act as a noun/adjective thing with の, so you have to use である instead? It's not my confusion over relative clauses. I have zero problems with relative clause construction in Japanese when any verb is considered. ヘビの喰ったねずみ provides no problem for me. It's just when である is concerned. I wonder if I should be using の instead.
アメリカ人のカイル vs アメリカ人であるカイル is a very similar type thing. I've always had problems specifically with when to use 名詞である名詞. I remember back as a student this was always something that got corrected on my compositions.
masaegu, can you explain when to use 名詞である名詞 vs 名詞の名詞? I know sometimes の doesn't act as a possessive, so I'm not talking about the times when I mean "the X belonging to Y" as YのX.