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I have a question about the lesson and the worksheet offered at http://www.textfugu.com/season-1/being-possessive/15-8/#top. It’s about the order you say things in.
In the lesson, you teach us to say “Jack is Jill’s father” like this:
Jackさん は Jillさん の おとうさん です。
In the answer section of the worksheet you go all
Jillさん の おとうさん は Jackさん です。
on us. I am assuming both are correct, but this inconsistency caused me to think I had all the answers wrong which was kind of a bummer.
I know in English you can go both ways (Jack is Jill’s father and Jill’s father is Jack) but is there a preferred order in Japanese?
Kind regards,
Joffrey
You’re just switching around what goes where. Both are correct, and they mean the exact translations you put. Just like in English both or used.
Say you are talking about Jack, and you want to say who he is/what he does, you’d say「JackさんはJillさんのおとうさんです。」- “As for Jack/Regarding Jack, (he is) Jill’s father.”
How about you’re talking about Jill’s family? You might want to say who Jill’s father is, so you’d say「JillさんのおとうさんはJackさんです」- “As for Jill’s father/Regarding Jill’s father, he is (called) Jack.”
Or maybe you are at a party and you ask someone “Hey, which one is Jill’s father again?”, they might say「かれ / あちら / あの人 / JackさんがJillさんのおとうさんです。」- “*HE* / *OVER THERE* / *THAT MAN (OVER THERE)* / *JACK* is Jill’s Father.” (the part before が is emphasised here)
However, for this one, the second example would work too (but IRL, it would be easier just to say “He is./Jack is./Him./That man./etc.” haha).While they’re both correct, they’re *slightly* different, “nuanced” if you will.
Thanks for the confirmation. Perhaps my question was a bit dumb but I have just started learning Japanese and a lot of things are still alien to me. Like I said I was a bit put off by the lessons but I ended up learning more, which is awesome.
PS Michael, look behind you! A three-headed monkey!
@Joffrey: Yeah, yeah, I’m not falling for THAT one again… ¬.¬
hehe ;) Y’know, Koichi said the exact same thing first time he saw this avatar; guess he’s a big MI fan too.
And don’t worry, Japanese is alien to just about EVERYBODY when they first start out :) Asking questions is all part of the learning process. Once you have one concept down though, another one, more horrific, comes soon after ;) Don’t worry: the joy that comes from tackling and conquering these little niggling pain-in-the-ass points “is what ALL true warriors strive for”.
At the end of the day, you just gotta draw your weapon and say: “You fight like a cow!”
;)
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