This topic contains 1 reply, has 2 voices, and was last updated by 
-
Posts
-
Greetings. This question is indeed about Japanese but actually originates from the 500 Sentences that Tofugu sent out in a newsletter. Being what I’d probably call something like an “advanced beginner”, I have a good grasp of vocabulary, but a not-so-great grasp of grammar.
In any case, one of the 500 Sentences asks to translate the term さ, in the context of the sentence:
さようでございますか。 かしこまりました。
I can roughly make out the meaning of the sentence itself, but the exercise itself is to find the translation for the word in relation to the sentence. Google Translate of course provided no translations for さ, and for さよう it offered “Very Painful”, although still didn’t offer up which part さ was referencing.
I know the front of the 500 Sentences says to not spend much time on each question, but since I am using this exercise to help teach myself grammar, and I’d really not like to teach myself something that is incorrect, I’d like to at least be mostly confident with all of my translations.
Thanks for any help!
Huh. Someone posted that exact sentence on HiNative quite recently. I didn’t know what to make of it then, either. =P Kinda wish I’d hung around to see if any native speakers replied, but it’s been well-buried by now. Wonder if there’s a search function.
The fact that it’s followed by かしこまりました suggests to me that it’s a standard phrase spoken by shop-people. Googling suggests さようでございます might be the respectful-polite form of そうです, but aside from the fact that さよう is a word (and it’s not さ on its own), it’s so specific and archaic that it’s gotta be a bad example sentence. There’s no way that version of さ can possibly rank in the top eighty most common words.
Anyway, that さよう is 左様, which is supposedly the origin of the farewell さようなら. However, the kanji 左 sitting on its own means “left”, and would be more typically read as ひだり (though it can be read as さ）.
I wonder if this さ is actually supposed to be the suffix -さ, which means “-ness”. As in, 大きさ = size (= “bigness”). Or 差 = difference. Surely Koichi would have checked that the example sentences are correct, though. Maybe we need to e-mail him and ask. Or Mami…
http://howtojaponese.com/2010/10/14/power-up-your-sou-sayou-de-gozaimasu/
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.