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Sorry for such a ridiculous sounding question about の:
In Season 5, 1-8, there is a sentence that reads: 二人の子じゃない。
Why does the sentence mean “It isn’t two kids” instead of “It isn’t two people’s kid”? Yes, the second translation does sound a little weird, but isn’t の the possessive – and thus the kid (子) is attributed to the two people (二人)?
Thanks for your help!
The particle の is also used to combine two nouns. I’m guessing that’s the reason why in this sentence. I think “it isn’t two people’s kid” is written another way.
The 人 is not the noun ひと, but rather the counter word にん (or in this particular case, り). That is, it’s not [two people]‘s kid, but rather, kid, of which there are two.
If the item was a pen, it’d be 二本のペンじゃない.
The 人 is not the noun ひと, but rather the counter word にん (or in this particular case, り). That is, it’s not [two people]‘s kid, but rather, kid, of which there are two.
If the item was a pen, it’d be 二本のペンじゃない.
And there’s your answer patrick. It was not a ridiculous sounding question by any means.
Just when I thought I was starting to get hang of this!! Thanks, this makes perfect sense!
Aye. One passage I was given in my course notes last year had the line ニューサウスウェールズ大学は六万人ぐらいの人があります which I just looked at going “huh? There’s sixty thousand people of people?” Fairly sure it’s the only counter that uses the same kanji as the thing it counts, though. (本 the counter, incidentally, is never used to count books.)
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