Page 502 - Basic Japanese

Ame ga futtari yandari

shimasu.

It rains intermittently (off and on).

Taguchi-san wa shinbun-kisha dattari, sensei dattari

shita koto ga arimasu.
Mr. Taguchi has been at various times a reporter
and a teacher.

Go-han o tabetari tabe nakattari sureba byōki ni
narimasu yo.
If you eat irregularly (sometimes eat,

sometimes don’t eat), you’ll get sick.

10.6. …nagara

To describe two simultaneous actions by a single person,
you can use the infinitive of a verb + nagara ‘while … ing’ for

the subsidiary action: Rajio o kiki-nagara hon o yomimashita ‘I

read the book while listening to the radio.’ If the two
simultaneous actions are performed by different people, you

have to say it another way: Watashi ga rajio o kiite iru aida ni
tomodachi wa hon o yomimashita ‘While I was listening to the

radio, my friend read a book.’
There is also another possible interpretation for

expressions with -nagara. Just as English ‘while’ means either