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- "ジョンともうします。"
"ジョンともうします。"
Translation:My name is John.
52 Comments
My John is name, your life is John, it all points back to John. Is John a bathtub?
Same. "My water is from John" was quite entertaining after reading the sentence a second time.
As a declarative particle. You're pointing out what you want to declare, that is your name.
So this is to bring particular attention to "John"? For example if someone got my name wrong and i wanted to correct them, i could use this sentence to point out john is my name, as opposed to whatever they just said?
Please someone correct ne if im wrong..
No, と wouldn't be used in the manner you described. I think of it more like quotation marks, since it's often used before verbs like 思う ("to think") and 言う ("to say").
In this case, もうします means "to be called", so you're quoting "John" as what you are to be called.
1409
英語で本は何といいますか。Book といいます。How do you say (/What do you call a) 本 in English. You say (/It's called a) book. あなたは本当にそうだと思いますか。ぼくだけではなくて、かれもそうだと思っています。Do you really think so? Not just me, he thinks so too!
If you were correcting someone's incorrect honorific use, could you say "John-さんともうします" to tell them that they should have used "san"?
That's an interesting idea, but there are a few problems with your suggested usage.
First and foremost, the fact is that you would never really "correct" someone's choice of honorific. You don't get to choose their view of their relationship to you, which is largely what honorific choice represents. Sure, you, and all Japanese people, will have expectations of which honorific people should use, based on your view of the relationship and the unspoken social rules that Japanese people learn (and influence) by growing up in Japan, but ultimately, they are just expectations and typically remain unspoken.
Secondly, while there is no "correct" or "incorrect" honorific choice, the use, or lack, of honorifics can speak volumes about one's social status. For instance, the use of さん indicates that the speaker is showing some level of respect to that person, putting them "higher" than the speaker. Note that this is the baseline level of respect strangers of roughly equal social standing extend to one another in civil conversation, since the default stance is to be deferential. So, insisting to be called ～さん is tantamount to insisting to be shown respect.
All of what I've said so far is talking about why Japanese people generally don't insist on a particular honorific, but it can be, and sometimes is done. However, the most incongruous part of your suggestion stems from the nature of もうします. This verb is from a part of speech called kenjougo, or "humble language", which is used to show respect to the listener by putting the speaker below them. So, it doesn't make sense to insist someone calls you ～さん, i.e. places you above them, in a way that places yourself below them.
There are myriad alternatives for how to insist on a particular honorific, depending on exactly how strongly you want to insist, your actual relative social standing, relative age, gender, how passive-aggressive/rude you want to sound, and so on. Whether or not と gets used depends on the verb you choose, and/or how you choose to structure the sentence.
- 36
Can't you use the particle と to show the manner in which you are doing something? If so, this makes very much sense to me, as you could also say "Call me by the name John".
No, unfortunately that's not how と works. As others have pointed out, it's more of a quoting particle, so you're saying "I am called "John". "
Other ways it is used include describing one's thoughts (～と思います【おもいます】= "I think ～") and quoting others' speech (ジョンさんは～と叫びました【さびました】= "John yelled ～").
It's also used in more advanced ways with specific verb forms, e.g. 話そう【はなそう】とします = "to try to speak", but those cases are very different from this exercise's sentence.
Like if you had a preference for John or Jon over Jonathan you could use "I am called" vs saying that your given name is John?
- 1409
と is sometimes called the quotative particle. It follows the word or phrase that is being stated / declared / quoted. Particles in Japanese are also called postpositions, because they follow the things they mark or identify, in contrast with our prepositions, that are (preposed) put in front of their objects.
What about the way it was taught earlier.
ジョンといいます
In what ways does this differ from the one shown?
I think it'd be more accurate to say, more respectful, hence slightly more formal.
もうします is 謙譲語 kenjougo, or "humbling language" so it is significantly more respectful than いいます
Didn't this mean "call me john" earlier and "namae wa" was for name? It rejected call me john but I'm pretty sure it insisted on that answer for this form
"Call me Jon," would be ジョンと呼んで (or ジョンと呼んでください if you wanted to be more polite).
Both are correct. English has many ways to state your name, Japanese is the same. There is a varying level of politeness with each option of course.
ションと申しまさ。 [ション, john] [と, declarative particle] [申します, もうします, "name is" (polite)] "My name is John" (polite).
Just wanted to point out that 申します is actually the humble verb form of "to be called, to say", not simply "name is". The implication is that you are conveying what others call you, and being humble in accepting it.
- 1409
According to the etymology section in Wiktionary for もしもし there is a connection:
A reduplication of もし (moshi), a shortened form of 申し (mōshi), the 連用形 (ren'yōkei, “continuative or stem form”) of humble verb 申す (mōsu, “to say, to speak”).
です is just a polite declaritive usually when you end a sentence with noun or adjective. Use ます in the polite form of verbs at the end of a sentence.
Which is more politely between 'といいます' or 'ともうします'? Or do those sentence have another meant except the 'polite' words? What is it?
You could technically say (I) の名前わジョンです, it would still be correct and sound less formal.
If you were to translate literally, you would say 「私 (わたし )の名前 (なまえ) はジョンではありません。」but usually, you would just say 「ジョンではありません。」
One of the most common uses of this construction is announcing the party speaking on the phone, so I put "This is John speaking". In an earlier exercise, for 「田中と申します」 I put "Tanaka speaking". Neither were accepted, though they should be.
