How are こと and こんな being used in this sentence?

Question

I have to translate the following.

メモには、「毎日、家のことをしてくれて、ありがとう。」と書いてありました。
こんなやさしい、ロマンチックな日本人の男の人がいると思いますか。

For the first sentence, I am not sure what the note says.

In the note, "Every day, you give ... to me, thank you" had been written.

Maybe house things? I have never seen こと except as a nominalizer. But 家 is already a noun.

For the second sentence, have more issues.

Do you think that ... easy/lenient romantic Japanese man exists?

I am not sure what the こんな means (na-adjective? variation of この?). And I am also not sure of the translation as a whole. Is いる just acting as です? Or maybe they're talking about Japanese men exist who are romantic?

Thanks for any help.

So would this be like housework then? Cooking/cleaning/etc. Everyday you do housework for me. — Snowy Coder Girl, Dec 15 '13 at 22:29
@Zhen Lin Better writers would not use the kanji for こと in this context. — , Dec 16 '13 at 01:23
I edited the title but ultimately you're asking like 3 questions here. You might want to edit it a little. — ssb, Dec 16 '13 at 02:28

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 29 '15 at 01:52

I would translate it approximately as follows:

In a note, he has written "Every day, thank you for the things you do around the house."
Do you think such a kind and romantic Japanese man exists?

In your translations, there are a couple of mistakes. (1) Here, やさしい most definitely means kind -- not lenient or easy. (2) I would no translate "書いてありました" as "had been written" here. Instead, given the second sentence, I would infer the subject is "he" i.e., a guy who would write such a note.

In terms of what you are asking about です vs いる. いる and ある are the verb of existence for living things and things respectively in Japanese. です does not serve that function. Inside of a と思う clause, it would not be です (polite form), it would be だ but if it's だ, there needs to be a predicate, like this:

マークはロマンチックな日本人の男の人だと思いますか。

With the `です` part I was just meaning the difference between "He is a good man" or "He exist as a good man". It may be irrelevant based on the translation. — Snowy Coder Girl, Dec 15 '13 at 22:51
A sentence with です would make the question whether he is a good man. A sentence with いる asks whether a man with such properties exists. — virmaior, Dec 15 '13 at 23:01

How are こと and こんな being used in this sentence?

1 Answers1