"I teach English to my Japanese friends."
Translation:日本人の友だちに英語をおしえます。
47 Comments
I'm confused about the に in this situation if someone could shed some light?
1174
Here, it is marking the indirect object; the target (日本人の友だち) of an action (おしえる). To compare it with previous usage, in a sense, it is showing the direction or location of the action, much like "to" in English, e.g. go to vs. give to.
My teacher explained that in these cases に is marking who the action is being done to. Hope this helps. :)
As far as I understand it the "no" is being used to describe the type of friends. "What type of friends? The Japanese ones." It isn't describing two separate groups ("the friends" and "the Japanese people"). I am not sure how to write, "The friends of the Japanese people" though, so I can't help you there. Sorry!!! Hopefully this helped a little bit though.
の seems like a connector between an adjective and a noun. "Japanese" can be seen in this sentence as an adjective. Therefore, the friends are Japanese.
Sometimes you fail because you write kanji, other times you fail because you don't? Wow.....
- 771
日本人の友達に英語を教えます。 -- Duo: "Wrong." Doesn't like the 達 and 教 characters.
So I went for the safe option of writing it completely in hiragana...
にほんじんのともだちにえいごをおしえます。 -- Duo: "Wrong."
Can't win. It almost always accepts sentences written completely in hiragana. So I assume there must be an alternate spelling such as にっぽんじん that it's looking for (or maybe the default is misspelt such as にほんひと or some other crazy thing). XD
Exactly, this happened to me so many times already, It's really frustrating. This should be fixed, it's a real turn off sometimes and it's really confusing.
How would one know when it's necessary? I see nouns combined without の quite frequently.
I am thinking that is better. I feel natural. But this is a feeling, sensation, impression. I can not say about grammar just now. I'm sorry, please let me change from "necessary" to "better".
From my understanding の is a possessive marker, like the 's in John's dog. I'm no expert in Japanese so I might not be right.
I answered "nihonjin tomodachi" and got it incorrect. I didn't report it though, because I don't know if the "no" is necessary.
- 15
I think it's like the difference between "Japan friend" be "Japanese friend". The former sounds a bit weird.
- 306
Yet they teach the former in previous lessons (I call my Japanese friend on the phone). There does not seem to be consistency here.
And yet 日本の友だち is considered wrong in this one. Brillant, Duo. Just brillant.
Yes but I read in another comment that it is phrased weird and "nihonjin no tomodachi" is better. (Sorry! I dont have a Japanese keyboard on my phone yet!)
From my understanding no, 日本の友達 means Japan's friends ( as in the country of Japan ) whereas 日本人の友達 means Japanese friends ( your friends that are from Japan ).
- 306
So why do we use 日本人の友だち here and 日本の友だち with the calling my Japanese friends? It is inconsistent in use. Plus I learned the latter when studying 30 years ago. Has the language changed that much?
I am afraid it's an inconsistancy issue with Duolingo. Yet I think both forms are not wrong. The latter sounds probably more natural.
As above, one is "Japanese-nationality friend", the other is "friend from/in Japan", who may or may not actually be Japanese.
The plural in Japanese is not mandatory. A noun can be singular or plural by itself. Also since 「友達」 already means either "friend" or "friends", i would guess it is more common to add 〜たち in this case if you want to make the plural explicit.
Do you mean that "tomotachi" is an explicit form for the plural? And is there an expicit form for the singular?
Line breakdown: 日本人 - Japanese, 友だち（友達）- Friend(s), 日本人の友達 - (my) Japanese friend(s), に - to (particle), 英語 - English language, を - action particle, おしえます（教えます）- to teach.
Im not sure about this but i get the feeling that 'eigo' is the direct object of the verb to teach and would theoretically be marked with wo.
- 15
Correct. It's the same in English; "English" is the thing you're teaching, and "my Japanese friend" is the person you're teaching it to.
- 306
I think it has to do with what sounds more natural. Saying it your way would be "my friend's Japanese people" which is not what the sentence is stating.
I thought の is to express the connection between a possessor and it's possessed object! Why should it be between an adjective and the described noun! I am SO confused!
- 306
の indicates possessive. 私のシャツ - my shirt or used to connect nouns みどりいろのくつ - green shoes. 日本人 is a non not an adjective. It means Japanese person or people.
Duo translated 日本の友だち as Japanese friends and now it's different here. I am not clearly understanding the difference between this and 日本人の友だち though.
- 306
I had the same issue. I think it is inconsistency. Both are acceptable but I was taught the one without the 人 when I was a kid.
See above. "Japanese friend" in English implies Japanese nationality, which requires 日本人.
Surely if it's "friends" plural it would typically be 友達たち, but this was rejected...(given in other exercises where I've left out the 'たち' for a group of people, it was marked wrong).
I Teach English To My Japanese Friends Should Be Right Not Using The Word Bank
- 771
This exercise asks for a Japanese answer. If you typed that English sentence, it's obviously not going to get accepted. ^^;
