4 ms·

I don't speak Japanese, so this is kind of half baked, but I find the OP description of "transform polite present tense" explanation a little confusing. Or at l

I don't speak Japanese, so this is kind of half baked, but I find the OP description of "transform polite present tense" explanation a little confusing. Or at least, maybe it assumes we don't do that in English? Or this is using a bad example? Let me explain. "I eat beef" is not something many native English speakers would say, or only in unusual contexts. We may say, "I am a beef eater" or simply "I like beef". Something about "I eat beef" as a statement conjures chest pounding imagery (it sounds primitive), so I'd propose we often pass through a sort of politeness filter too? Anyways as a English only programmer, I don't know if I learned anything from the article - maybe you have to speak Japanese to get it?

franciscop 4y ago
A bit that you can get away with learning: in English, the things foreigners start learning (and probably you in elementary school about the language and its structure are closer to the actual English usage compared to other languages like Spanish and Japanese. In my example, the textbook beginner "I eat beef" is very out of place usually in the 3 languages, but in English "I like/love beef" are perfectly valid examples that still follow the same basic/beginner structure of "I eat beef" and are valid. In Japanese and Spanish, you have to change the whole sentence structure to not sound like a robot. (English grammar being simpler in this trifecta, but then in exchange you have the crazy pronunciation learning of English that I found out I would never "fully learn" and nobody really does in English, since you even have literal competitions (spelling bees) where people show off how good they are at it, and with jokes still happening between professionals like "is it 'data' or 'data'?").
PuppyTailWags 4y ago
In Japanese, the formalizations of polite speech vs impolite speech are significantly more rigorous than in English. So much so that different words and grammatical changes to words occur. You can insult someone by saying "I watched my boss be given an anniversary present by their boss" by using the word 'give' word which implies the recipient or the giver are a lower social status than you the observer.

franciscop 4y ago

A bit that you can get away with learning: in English, the things foreigners start learning (and probably you in elementary school about the language and its structure are closer to the actual English usage compared to other languages like Spanish and Japanese. In my example, the textbook beginner "I eat beef" is very out of place usually in the 3 languages, but in English "I like/love beef" are perfectly valid examples that still follow the same basic/beginner structure of "I eat beef" and are valid. In Japanese and Spanish, you have to change the whole sentence structure to not sound like a robot. (English grammar being simpler in this trifecta, but then in exchange you have the crazy pronunciation learning of English that I found out I would never "fully learn" and nobody really does in English, since you even have literal competitions (spelling bees) where people show off how good they are at it, and with jokes still happening between professionals like "is it 'data' or 'data'?").

PuppyTailWags 4y ago

In Japanese, the formalizations of polite speech vs impolite speech are significantly more rigorous than in English. So much so that different words and grammatical changes to words occur. You can insult someone by saying "I watched my boss be given an anniversary present by their boss" by using the word 'give' word which implies the recipient or the giver are a lower social status than you the observer.