I don't understand how to describe a recurring or retrieved condition. Is
there a special way to express sentences like:

> a) I was sick, but now (just now), I am finally better again.

I want to express that being healthy is the normal state, "had been sick" was
a longer but now ended period and that for the future the expectation is "to
be fine".

> b) As a child, I had a book, it got lost, but finally (just now) I found it
> again (this time I will take care not to loose it again).

I know there is "bakari ~ta" for the "happened just now" part, but how do I
express the rest of the structure, mostly regarding time and correlation?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-22T18:59:57.270
23396
2015-03-24T02:17:20.777
2015-03-22T19:49:43.370
1628
3716
question
grammar time
How to describe a recurring/retrieved condition?
I think the difference has more to do with semantics rather than specific
words or phrasing. Even in English, we say "I was sick, but I got better", to
imply that being "well" is the normal state, probably because being sick in
prolonged state is not commonly seen, but if you wanted to, you could also use
the same exact wording to indicate recovering from a chronic illness. When one
says "今は大丈夫です", does it mean she had the cold for a week? or did she have CML
for years and got better with bone marrow transplant?

I mean, you could say something like "元気な姿に戻った" for a, since we want to
indicate returning to a normal state (being healthy). For b, you're saying
that the book is loss-prone and the borderline-normal state is being lost.
There's not a good way to express this without being wordy or saying something
completely different. I think you would literally need to say something along
the lines of "今回は紛失しない".

TL; DR: I don't think there's a concise way to mark the difference.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-22T22:49:01.940
23398
2015-03-22T22:49:01.940
9673
23396
answer
As for example (a), it would be natural to say for example:

> a) (ずっと)[寝込]{ねこ}んでいましたが、(やっと|ようやく)[元気]{げんき}になりました。

In this expression, ずっと "for a long time" and やっと/ようやく "finally" seems to be
kind of key words in expressing notions in your question.

One point you have to note here is that this structure automatically contains
an implication of "long-held wish coming true". So, if you say for example:

> (ずっと)[探]{さが}していた[本]{ほん}が(やっと)[見]{み}つかりました！

it means that you have always been longing for finding the book again.
Otherwise if you have given up finding the book long ago, saying for example:

> b) (なんと)[子]{こ}どもの[頃]{ころ}になくしてしまった本が[出]{で}てきました！

may be a natural utterance. (なんと here is an interjection to emphasize your
surprise.)

Btw, though studying these words (ずっと、やっと、ようやく、なんと) would be helpful,
basically I agree with FJSK in that these specific words are not necessarily
fundamental for these expressions. You can drop all these words from above
sentences, and they still make sense totally grammatically.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-24T01:52:57.233
23415
2015-03-24T02:17:20.777
2015-03-24T02:17:20.777
7667
7667
23396
answer