Home Forums The Japanese Language Sentence translation help needed plllz

This topic contains 4 replies, has 2 voices, and was last updated by  Juan Larroucau de Magalhaes-Calvet 9 years, 10 months ago.

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  • #46976

    Hey guys, I got some problems with the following sentence:

    人間に生まれたいのなら、自分の食べ物を人間にごちそうすることだ

    I think the first part says: “If you want to be born as human”
    but for the second part, i understand every word, I understand the object is “your own food” but the verb part is what i dont understand, specifically that 人間に before which complicates things for me. If I saw 人間にごちそうする alone, sounds like “to treat” but with a “treat made for a human consumption”. Even if I finally understand what it says after the を I really dont understand how to apply that part to the direct object of the verb (自分の食べ物), how can I treat my own food? Isnt the food itself the treat? omg…. and this is a kids story……..
    Any help will be appreciated.

    #46979

    Joel
    Member

    “To treat” = buy/make a meal for someone. It’s “Treat a person to your own food”. I think.

    Honestly, I’m not at all sure. What’s the book? Who’s talking?

    Were you the one reading The Little Prince in Japanese?

    #46981

    Well, I finally understood the problem, my problem was that I was being tricked by the sentence order, something thats so basic but that got me on this one. My problem was that I was trying to translate the following parts as separated UNITS:

    自分の食べ物
    人間にごちそうすることだ

    As u see, if we looked at it just like that, trying to translate “人間にごちそうする” and AFTER that apply it to the object “自分の食べ物” the thing results in a mess. But why did I take “人間にごちそうする” as a unit? Because in the 3 languages I know: Spanish my mother language, english and french, にごちそうする comes right after 人間 which implies they act as one unit. I totally forgot or better said “over sought” the most recurrent sentence in japanese learning: “Sentence order doesnt matter as long as the verb is at the end, the particles dictate the purpose of every sub-sentence or word”. So my correct analysis (in my head oc) should have been:
    自分の食べ物 : Object of the verb
    人間 : Direction of what happens
    ごちそうすることだ : What happens.

    And so the translation goes: “You will treat humans with your own food”.

    I will leave the explanation here so anyone can see the process of my thought to reconstruct the problem and what was my huge mistake. If you are interested in the story, its classical japanese mythology and you can read it here: http://hukumusume.com/douwa/betu/minwa/05/23.htm

    Its VERY good reading practice for grammar practicing and getting to know more of what japanese kids are told when they are young.
    If you liked the story, here u have the index of all the stories types they have and if u click on one u will find a lot of stories in each category:

    http://hukumusume.com/douwa/betu/

    PS: About The Little Prince… Its already difficult to understand all the corners it has in spanish… not even gonna try in Japanese.

    #46983

    Joel
    Member

    Yeah, remember that particles are post-positions – they’re attached to the word that comes before them, not the word after. So, for example, ラーメンを食べます is not ラーメン + を食べます but rather ラーメンを + 食べます.

    #46984

    Yeh, thats what killed me, normally Japanese sentences follow and order but, as its not mandatory, things like this one happen from time to time

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