"That person is her grandfather."
Translation:あの方は彼女のおじいさんです。
36 Comments
I just took this question and failed it as the answer it had as correct was おおぜいの人が亡くなりました。Which means, many people died.
I just got this too! its the very first time i see a question err completely!
方 should be read カタ. FWIW Duolingo makes similar mistakes with Mandarin polyphones (characters with multiple readings) all the time. Example: 得 (de5 vs. dei3).
I was unaware 方 could be used for people. You learn something new all the time.
Yeah, そふ does mean grandfather, but I think おじいさん is preferred when discussing someone else's grandfather.
I was taught that when you're discussing your own family members with people outside of your family, you typically would use the shorter terms. When talking about other people's families you should generally use the longer terms because it's more respectful.
Why would "sofu" not be correct here instead of "ojiisan"? I get that the latter is more polite, but what else in the sentence signals that we're working on that level of politeness?
You only use sofu/sobo when talking about your own family. Its a level of familiarity that you dont use with other peoples families. I hope I explained that well enough. If someone has a more complete answer, I would like to know too.
I think the politeness level here falls under the broad category of in-groups and out-groups, which is a huge thing in Japanese language as well as culture. It's way too big a topic to attempt to cover in a comment here even if I was a Japanese culture expert, which I am not. If you're interested, searching "uchi-soto" turns up many relevant results.
Just in my own experience, I've found it pretty convenient to have different terms that imply whether you're talking about your own family or someone else's. It lets you avoid having to shoehorn extra pronouns into your Japanese sentences, which gets awkward and unnatural real fast, while still being clear about whose grandpa you're discussing.
It's indicated by the fact that the grandfather you're talking about is not your own. It's one of those inside/outside words.
Duolingo gave me this: あの人はかのじょのおじいさんです。But I didn't have "人" as an option. I only discovered that I needed to use 方 because of this discussion! I used 男の人, was that so bad?
方 is a more polite way of saying person. 男の人 is specifically "man." You could use that word in a conversation, but Duolingo won't accept it here because it was only asking for "person." Also, it's nice to use 方 here because the person is someone else's grandfather, and also a senior so it's good to respect him.
It seems that duolingo has gotten the answer to this question confused with another. The "correct" answer it gave me not only didn't have the word for grandfather in it, but also used the verb 無くなる or 亡くなる which respectively mean either to disappear/become lost and to die. Also, おおぜい means crowd and so there is no way the question is only addressing one person.
From my understanding 女の人 is woman but 彼女 is she or her. So a more accurate translation of the statement would use 彼女
彼女 also means girlfriend, so in this context "he went on a date with his girlfriend" uses 彼女 :)
I had the same question, but if you think about it, it makes sense. その方 means that the person is standing right next to the listener, so it would be extremely rude to call them "that person."
You could also say, “その人はかのじょのそふです“. We do not know where the speaker and the grandfather is in the room and そふ for grandfather could work too. I believe 人 is more casual.
What's happen to the answer? It's nothing close to what the English sentence says.
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Epic fail. I have no chance translating when the " correct " answer doesn't answer the question. おおぜいの人がなくなりました。was given as well for me. I think it should be あの人はかのじょのおじいさんです
方 is direction. I think literally this sentence means: that direction is her grandfather
