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- "今日は何をしますか？"
"今日は何をしますか？"
Translation:What will we do today?
80 Comments
Strictly speaking this is "What is done today?" Or "What will be done today" because the subject has been omitted. You could say "今日私たちは何をしますか" but in natural conversation its usually clear by context who or what the subject is so its dropped. Out of context that sentence could be what will he/she/they/we/the dog/god/Goku etc do today?
The subject may have been omitted, but it would still be understood to be there in context. This, and the fact that there is a grammatical passive voice in Japanese which is not used here, indicates, to me at least, that a translation in the passive voice would not be appropriate.
What if I use "I"/"you" instead of "we"? Like "What shall I do today?" or "What shall you do today?"
In this case you would be talking to yourself and phrase would be 今日は何をしましょうか
you may just say 今日は何をしますか or if you wanna give enphasis on the word "you" it's better to use the name of the person example; sakura-san 今日は何をします
1153
"in today what will be done" - it is much like when I met a friend and said " what's up " meaning "what are we going to do now"
well years ago we would actually have said "yo, 'sup bro" never thought how hard that would be to understand for someone learning english for example
No, "is done/will be done" is passive, so a literal Japanese translation of "What is done today?" or "What will be done today" would be 何がされますか. That might be even weirder as Japanese than the English is as English, though.
The Duo: The same thing we do everyday. Learn Japanese, or else you know what happens...
Well, you can't like this. Unless you're given some context, you'll have to make do with the arbitrary phrases Duolingo has set up for us.
Here's what's going on: Japanese don't like to spell out their whole meaning the way English speakers do. Inferred meaning is extremely common in every Japanese conversation. So many words can simply be dropped. And saying those words just sounds bulky. That's why every word shouldn't be translated in order for it to sound natural. Hope this helps.
Moryal C., very well said. I think it's hard for others to understand this concept unless you have spent a lot of time with Japanese people. They don't like to say things directly, thinking it appears rude. They seem to be aware of others needs or feelings without you having to say anything.
Subject omission is a common thing in Japanese. However, when translating from/to each other, more often subject is needed in English.
- 189
There is no future tense in japanese per se. It could be what you said as well. In english the question is a bit odd and so the future tense makes more sense. But as i said, yourr not really wrong
Is "what will I do today?" also correct. It seems that it should be as the subject is implied and not stated.
Hmm. I wonder if the present progressive て form would be acceptable in conversation.
While 今日は何をしますか is comparable to "What will be done today", I don't know if 今日は何をしていますか is just gibberish, or likenable to "What are you doing today" in English. Anyone know?
Eeyore, your 2nd English translation also fits the first Japanese sentance.
At first, 今日は何をしていますか sounded weird in my ears... but as I was typing up an answer and thought about it more, I think your propesed sentence isn't gibberish but rather correct. Maybe a tad bit stiff, but I can easily imagine situations where that might be used, similar to the example sentence.
I put "What are you up to today?", and it says I was wrong...But I feel like it should be accepted since it is more natural and native way of saying "what are you doing today"
I never like "what are you up to". As a non-native speaker it always sounds to me as if you imply the other person has some mischievous plans :-)
- 1339
Is there anything in this sentence that indicates "we"? This could also be "What will you do today?"
Japanese is a contextual language. In English, a subject is necessary for a sentence to be grammatically correct. In this case, it can be anyone. It would translate more or less into something like "What to do today?" Although I doubt this sentence is correct, although we do speak like this in real life.
japanese is a language where you need to see the context, so in this phrase, in this context you'll be talking to someone else and the word "you" in japanese is not being used, it means you may be saying "what will 'we' do today"
I believe "What did you do today?" would use ました instead of ます. The full translation would be「今日は何をしましたか ?」
I don't think Duolingo should have the correct translation for this sentence be "we", the sentence should have more context for that to be the correct translation.
"しましょか？" vs. "しますか？"
«What will you do today» accepted. Just in case it helps us. There is no context, common japanese thing, but i think we need it to learn good till we do not need it anymore, «reading between lines skills» growing up yet. Sorry, i am not an english native speaker.
It is a question,so i think 1 question is asked to someone,then «we» ¿appear?(i am not english). There are no 彼he、かれらthey、or 彼女たち they shemale, then we is the はwa. Just what i think.
current day は what を do/todo か
As for today, {subject} does what?
There is no "we" in this sentence, its implied. We would be [first person pronoun] + たち or ら. 僕たち、私たち etc
There's even no watashi tachi, so how come the answer have a 'we'? Aigoooo..
If I remember right "What will you do today" is accepted as well.
In Japanese the subject is often omitted if it can be known from the context of the conversation, which with duo it's hard to know which subject word they are looking for since it's just one sentence out of context, but in that case even if the official answer they give uses "we" they let you use a few different subject words like "you" since it also makes sense as the omitted subject.
How do you pronounce the first four characters? Is it "ima nichi wa nani"?
current day は what を do/todo か
As for today, {subject} does what?
If they bothered to add the 私たち/私ら this could've been a good way to show the difference between は/が
- 291
It is a bit beyond this level, but another possibility should be 「今日はどうしましょうか」 or even 「今日は何がしましょうか」. I am not native, but I lived in Japan for a year or so. It would be better if someone who is native could comment, but those are my two cents, for what it is worth.
I typed in "What are we gonna do today?" and it was considered wrong <:( not sure why
It's probably because you used "gonna" rather than "going to", the meaning is right but they probably don't have more colloquial contractions like gonna, wanna, shoulda etc in their database.
- 267
I had a similar issue writing "I". I tried again and it accepted "what will I do today" and it was accepted. My previous answer was "what am I doing today".
If you wanted to include the "we" information, would you say "今日は私たちは" or do two "は"s make no sense?
ps. Typing "たち" I just found out there's a kanji for it, 達, same as in 友達 tomodachi. Pretty interesting!
"私たちが" would be more appropriate. Two は's does not make sense as "we" is the subject of the sentence and not the topic. "今日" is already in that position.
- 72
Without any context that sentence is a little confusing for me.
Even if i typed it right at first try and understand what it mean.
