"おなかがすきましたか？"
Translation:Are you hungry?
56 Comments
すく literally means to get empty. When it is in past tense, this means the process of your stomach getting empty is done, so you are hungry now.
Good question. I had to do a google research and it came up with お腹がすいていた. Details at https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/1187/what-is-the-past-tense-of-%E3%81%8A%E8%85%B9%E3%81%8C%E7%A9%BA%E3%81%84%E3%81%9F
Andi, I checked your dedicated research with a native speaker, who said that he would never say that. Both past and present use the same verb form: おなかがすきましたか ( He also said you can say this with or without the "が").
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Ok, so your friend is listening to their friend tell a story about their trip to a restaurant but your friend is also cooking. How, in that context, would he clarify whether he means "were you hungry" or "are you hungry"
Wait, I thought すき was the verb meaning "to like"? Is this the same verb which means "to become emlty"?
好き（すき） meaning "liking, fondness" isn't a verb, it's a noun and な-adjective.
空く（すく）meaning "to become less crowded, to thin out, to become empty" is a verb, and its polite form is 空きます（すきます）
They're totally different words.
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Cos it means literally - has your stomach emptied? So in natural sounding English - are you hungry.
That's very strange. From where I'm sitting neither the Japanese nor the English has "she" in it. Maybe one version of the question is broken.
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Technically, with no context, both should be valid. If Duo doesn't provide context then they should be set up to accept all valid answers.
It 'should' work since without context you wouldn't know someone's gender with a Japanese sentence - and gender neutral is kind of the default.
空く (to become empty -- with the stomach, it's used to indicate hunger)
空いて (て-form of verb, used to combine it with other actions)
空いている (sort of literally "to become empty and be", but a more natural translation accounting for that idiom would be "is becoming empty" or in this case "is becoming hungry")
空いています (the same, but more politely, replacing the verb ending with ます)
Whereas with the past form, you have 空く -> 空きます -> 空きました (became empty, is hungry)
So it's sort of the same as asking if the person is hungry (if their stomach became empty) vs. asking if they're getting hungry (their stomach is emptying).
It's past tense polite of 空く which is a verb that means to become empty or less crowded. We just don't tend to say "Did your stomach become empty?" as a way to ask someone if they are hungry in English.
I remember when I firsy learned Japanese, we wrre introduced to the phrase "お腹がペコペコ" for "I am hungry", buy I have mever heard it since. Is this phrase obsolete?
Is that really different for converting the meaning from English with Hyojyungo - Tokyo Ben & Kansai Ben?...is the kansai more like slang in English?
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関西弁(かんさいべん) isn't slang; it's just a particular dialect (or group of dialects) of Japanese spoken in the Kansai region.
「お腹ペコペコ」means 'My stomach is grumbly'. I have only heard kids say it, or anime characters. It would be kind of weird for an adult to say it.
Japanese onomatopeia are commonly used in everyday speech for stuff well beyond animal sounds. For a large collection see https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/japanese-onomatopoeia/
Ok now it says "are you hungry?" Literally changing answers every time it comes up lmao.
"Is she hungry?" would probably be translated as 「彼女はお腹が空きましたか？」 or in kana only 「かのじょはおなかがすきましたか？」
This version without the topic marker は could refer to anyone, though without other context the listener is a good bet, as you wouldn't likely be asking about yourself. If you were talking about someone else immediately beforehand, it could refer to that person though.
The verb 空くmeans to become empty so it's not that the stomach was empty in the past, but that it became empty then.
It's just idiomatic that in order to say someone is hungry in Japanese you say their stomach became empty.
Not unless "she" was the topic of discussion before this was said. In duolingo there's no context available so it shouldn't be making weird assumptions like that. I didn't run into the same bug when I did this question, but it seems others did.
Literally, this sentence is:
お腹【おなか】stomach
が identifier particle (kind of like pointing a finger directly at the noun before it)
空きました 【すきました】past polite of 空く a verb which means "to become empty".
か question particle
So a closer translation for what this is saying is "Did the stomach become empty?" - it doesn't specify whose stomach, you're supposed to know. Without context, a reasonable listener would assume you meant their own stomach.
greenfrench, I had the same question. A native speaker explained for the meaning "like" (literally, "is pleasing to" in Japanese) "すき" is followed by "です". Cale explained the grammar and showed the kangi, which are pronounced the same but indicate different meanings. Thank you Cale, I did not have the kanji for "to become empty". I am new at kangi and so need to identify a picture with each one to remember it. This one was easy. It reminded me of a figure with a wide skirt and arms spreading out to indicate "more space" or "empty".
did you get hungry? Why is this not accepted? It's really frustrating that duolingo gets so strict with certain translation in the later level. Please fix it.
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It does not need to be fixed. The error lies with your understanding of how the Japanese should be translated. おなか が すきました - literally - My stomach emptied. If your stomach emptied then it is currently empty right now ergo if your stomach is empty right now then you are currently hungry. This is why it is translated as "I am hungry". My stomach emptied - past tense - meaning I am (currently) hungry.
They really need to start using Kanji.... because all his hiragana makes it way more confusing than needed. :C
Could someone please explain why they have such a long phrase for being hungry?
お腹が空きましたか marked wrong? type what you hear question have no way to report "my answer should be accepted" and at this stage I feel like a "kanji not accepted" should be a default report for the japanese course
