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- "トイレはどこですか？"
"トイレはどこですか？"
Translation:Where is the bathroom?
101 Comments
633
Remember: Hidari's kanji has "e" in it, as in lEft, and migi's has "ro" in it, as in Right! For spoken, though, I remember it as (being a right-handed person) "migi" is shorter, so it requires less energy to say than "hidari" and when I use my right hand, the task is easier since I'm using my dominant hand.
If you know Spanish you can think of 左 as "izquierda" which means left (of course), the I stands for izquierda :p
- 100
When you ask someone for directions, I can pretty much guarantee that they will never answer in kanji.
- 633
I had a substitute teacher who knew a little bit of Spanish. The only phrase she learned was "Where is the bathroom and tell me in English." Sounds like a protip to me.
Does トイレ mean bathroom or toilet? As in room with a toilet in or room with a bath in? Or the actual toilet?
Since japanese bathrooms are traditionally completely separate from the toilet, it doesn't refer to the bathroom, but you could use it for a bathroom which has a toilet
- 1143
The English word "bathroom" is not restricted to meaning "a room with a bath", and a room with only a toilet in it can be called a bathroom in English. The Japanese word トイレ can be translated as restroom or bathroom, but I do not believe it would refer to a room without a toilet.
- 625
The room with a toilet - トイレ or お手洗い（おてあらい）
The room with a bathtub - 浴室（よくしつ） 浴場（よくじょう）風呂場（ふろば）
The room where you change clothes before taking a bath - 脱衣場（だついじょ）
- 625
And the one you see in the hotel where toilet and bathtub are set together - ユニットバス (unit bath)
- 633
Yeah, I prefer using otearai. Sounds less...crude to me (just like how I use the word "restroom" in English.)
In England a lot of homes have separate rooms for bath and toilet, so if a visitor asks for the bathroom, they will be shown to the room with the bath. If you want the toilet, the polite word is "loo", but never bathroom.
- 100
This must depend on who you talk to.
To me, the polite word is "toilet". The word "loo" sounds impolite, to me.
(I am English, just to be clear.)
Cyzaki - it actually means lavatory / toilet. However, due cultural differences, specifically a trend to prudishness, Americans tend to call them bathrooms or restrooms.
I would be more offended if you didn't leave out the 'to' in 'due to cultural differences'.
Since mit already ihre the acoustic treffende toilet this should be clear. The problem is American English, where people are too afraid to talk about the toilet and what is done there. It is comparable to the behavior of Japanese women that used tremendous amounts of water to flush the toilet stool that none could hear their own splashing sounds (to save the precious water quite some toilets have sound generators installed). Neither concept is found in Europe. In Sweden it is even more extreme, where you find toilets where women can watch and talk to each other, while doing their business. International English does not share this strange relationship to one's physiological necessities and calls a toilet a toilet.
Actually you are correct! But the sentence would be very informal so be careful with using it.
Particle omitting is quite common in colloquial Japanese especially between friends.
Da is declarative. You can't use da as a straight swap for desu. Don't fall into the mistake of thinking da is just the informal version of desu. They are not interchangeable!!
For the plain form, "toire wa doko?" is enough, or even just "toire wa?" With rising intonation.
Only in polite wording. If you say どこはトイレだ？(plain form of the question) you dont use か.
- 982
Americans will sometimes use the word "john" to refer to a bathroom - very slangy, but still a thing. As it was one of the tiles, I tried it, but Duo said no.
Ok, this is really important... do people in Japan ask for directions to the bathroom like this? If I went to someone's house, and I asked, "Where's your toilet?" that would come across as a little vulgar... I don't want to go to Japan and find out the awkward way that they would find that vulgar too
ちょっとすみませんがトイレにどう行けばいい？？From what I've learned this phrase is quite a polite way to ask how to get to the toilet (Please correct me if I'm wrong), but essentially it's 'Excuse me but how can I get to the toilet?'
- 633
Whatever the proper way to ask is will depend entirely on where you are and who you're asking. Where I live, it would be considered crude.
Why is it どこですか and not どこありますか? ある seems to be more appropriate for describing location of an object, but why is です used instead?
- 625
In short, both of them are correct and have the same meaning. This is a famous topic "unagi-sentence"（ウナギ文）
The original sentence of the unagi (eel) sentence:
僕はウナギだ (As for me, eel)
We can well translate this as "I am an eel" but this is not probably what it means.
The conversation is probably like this.
- お食事は何にする？(What do you want for the meal?)
- 僕はウナギだ (As for me, eel.)
The sentence 僕はウナギだ is actually a contraction of 僕はウナギにする
This is exactly the sentence for トイレはどこですか: a contraction of トイレはどこにありますか
On the bathtub question I entered お風呂はどこにありますか, but it was marked as wrong. I know お風呂はどこですか probably is the more normal way to say it, but I was wondering if the other way was right. Did I miss something or is does Duolingo just not have this in their answer bank?
I thought the same because the previous question 'is this a toilet?' started woth kore, not toire. I find it so difficult to know what is the subject of a sentence and therefore should go first.
- 633
In English, the subject and topic of a sentence tend to be the same thing. This is not the case in Japanese. "Toire wa" indicates that the topic of the sentence is the toilet. So, it's starting off with "Speaking of the toilet..." And the rest is about the toilet. In this case, "Speaking of the toilet, where is it?" For "This is not a toilet" the topic may be "this" ("kore") instead of "toilet." "Speaking of this...it is a toilet."
See the difference?
- 462
"Bathroom" is not appropriate for Australian English. We would ask "Where is the toilet?"
Why トイレ "restroom" is wrong translate in this question? And success in another?
Probably because like English, Japanese has multiple words for a toilet, for example:
トイレ - toilet; お手洗い - bathroom, restroom; 化粧室 - bathroom, restroom (literally "powder room", be careful about this one, it's feminine colloquialism)
I image that duo accepts only "toilet" as the translation of トイレ since that is what it literally means. If I wanted to swap "toilet" for "restroom" I'd use お手洗い.
I am very upset that "where is the John" is not an adequate translation.
- 633
Oh man imagine the confusion that would cause... "John-san wa dare desu ka?" "Iie, 'John' wa toire desu." "Hidoi yo! D<" "Iie, chigai masu! Anata ga wakari masen!" "'Anata?!'" "Eeeeeto-! Sumimasen. Gaijin desu..." "Ah. Wakari masu."
- 633
I guess that, technically speaking, "your" could be implied here. The word itself isn't in the sentence, though. I'm not sure whether it's worth reporting or not.
Please add "Where is the toilet?" This is not a place to force euphemisms, I'm trying to learn here...
- 633
Eh, you still might. Better learn as much as you can about the culture if you want to avoid that.
In some countries restroom is called toilet. So it should be accepted as the answer.
the female voice is so desanimated lmao (〒﹏〒), i bet shes having a bad day
Japanese tend to be very relaxed about discussing bodily functions - much more so than prudish 'Anglo-Saxons'. Talking of which, if Americans call a toilet a bathroom, what do they call an actual bathroom, as in a room containing a bathtub?
- 982
Also bathroom - toilet and tub are usually in the same room here.
Not sure if this is true for others, but in our house we had a room with just a toilet and sink which we referred to as the "half bath".
I thought japaneses put a loud sound (Using large amount of water to make sounds flushing or with some sound box) in the toilet because they don't want people hearing their bodily functions, it's strange to say they are very relaxed about that, but, anyway, it's cultural. Here in Brazil, bathtubs and toilet generally are put in the same room. I've never seen a room with just a bathtub here. (Maybe some public bathroom)
Is it just me or does the audio sound like there is a 'de' between toilet and wa?
Is it sad that i find katakana easier to read and understand that Hiragana and Kanji? ._.
If it is, then I must be really happy because I'm the other way round! For some reason I just can't get the katakana at all, and guess most of it. I guess we've all got our weak point. Keep going - some aspects of language learning are just hard slog:(
- 633
It could be because you're a beginner. Kana used to be easier for me, too. (WAY easier than kanji. Learning radicals (the building blocks that make up kanji) helps a lot.) But the trick to katakana that makes it difficult is that it's mimicking a foreign language...and not necessarily in the way that native speakers of that language would construct it, themselves. So, rather than thinking "how would I build this word using katakana?" you just have to memorize how the Japanese build them and repress what comes naturally to you. That, my friend, is what makes it difficult, and you'll become more and more exposed to this as you advance (while kanji will become easier over time since you're learning something you don't have a frame of reference for.) Katakana foreign-borrowed words and kanji seem to have opposite learning curves, with kana seeming easier to begin with and harder as you progress, and kanji being hard to begin with, and easier as you progress. This is what I've observed in my own studies, and also what I've seen from advanced learners.
Story: me and my family were in harajuku and my brither needed to use the toilet. So he asked a random japanese person if there's a toilet. The person answered but he didn't get it.
- 633
I know question marks are, but I think it may give it a more casual feel than using the Japanese maru. Since Japanese already has particles like ka and no to indicate questions, I don't think the question marks are all that necessary most of the time.
