"田中さんのお母さんは先生だと思います。"
Translation:I think that Mr. Tanaka's mother is a teacher.
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I think some sort of honorific is needed in English. Not using さん on a name in Japanese is very impolite, especially if you dont know them very well. Is there a genderless honorific in English?
I disagree that the English translation requires an honorific. If it were さま then I would agree, a Mr. Ms. Mrs. would be necessary, but there really isn't a one-to-one translation for honorifics into English. I mean, how should we handle the dimunitive くん or ちゃん ?
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~様 is on a much higher politeness level than ~さん. It doesn't really have a direct English equivalent or at least I don't know how you would translate it without sounding cheesy or ingratiating. You wouldn't use ~様 in every day speech to regularly address colleagues etc. ~様 is not to be used to address old "Joe Blow" - ie. not for just anybody.
I think that this is just context based, the speaker must know Tanaka even a little and know his gender. Usually when you know somebody's name you also knoe their gender.
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There's no equivalent for ~ちゃん/くん you've got that right. Maybe you could convey it in English by changing the person's name to show the speaker's familiarity with the person they're addressing eg. サムくん could be translated as Sammy in English, but then if you're translating for school or for work there's the issue of how much lee-way a teacher or supervisor would allow you in terms of translation.
「さん」を翻訳するかしないか、Duolingoの日本語レッスンには男性の主人公があります。もしそうなら, 何をしよう？「田中さん」は「Mr. Tanaka」だと思います。ところで、 女性の主人公 (キャラクター)の名前は何ですか？誰か覚えてるの?
- 1219
田中 is a very common Japanese surname. There's no reason to question whether it could be a first or last name like with John, so in this instance ~さん really should be translated as Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms.
Personally, I like simply to use -san even in English translations, simply because there is no direct English equivilent. After all you do not add Mr and Mrs to given names, the way you can for -san.
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Actually, it's "だ と", two separate words/particals. The だ here is the plain form of です. If the sentence lacked "I think", you would write "田中さんのお母さんは先生です". But because we add "I think", we need to say the sentence in plain form.
と思う is the particle と and the verb. You'll see this many times in Japanese! Duolingo also teaches と言う, and the grammar for と思う and と言う are similar.
Only plain form is allowed before と思います. です isn't plain form, so ですと wouldn't be correct in this sentence.
noun + だ + と
na adjective + だ + と
Thank you sir, I was very confused here, so that makes it like two minisentences in one......jk
thanks so much this really helped i still have 1 question, how would you write "i think she was a teacher?"
On the web version I got "you have a typo" for the correct answer - I picked the box that had an "apostrophe s" box, but the non typo version on screen was "I think Mr. Tanaka s mother is a teacher." ie minus the apostrophe. So the exemplar is wrong.
- 1219
Yes you do unless you are in the habit of always addressing people just by their surnames - 田中 is a very common Japanese surname.
In Spanish we use it like that sometimes, but I can see how in English sounds weird. Never thought about it in that way, very curious.
gender specification is needed. if none is given then "tanaka" or "tanaka-san" should be accepted
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田中 is a very common Japanese surname. It needs a title - take your pick - all titles of any gender should be accepted as valid translations.
Is "Ms Tanaka's mother thinks she is a teacher" possible? What about if it used 思ています?
I think Ms. Tanaka's mother is a teacher should have been accepted. Why do I have to put "that"?
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because は follows 田中さん の お母さん. This tells us that Tanaka's mother is the subject/focus of the subordinate clause not 先生.
Is it any different to say "I think Mrs. Tanaka's mother is the teacher." Because that also wasn't accepted.
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THE teacher is too specific. It also hints at context from previous conversation - ie. THE/THAT teacher that we were taking about earlier.... 'a teacher' is more general - ie. a teacher (unspecified, amongst many people who also have the profession of teacher).
It didn't accept 'I think tanaka's mother is a teacher' even though we didn't have gender... Okay then.
it is
"[phrase, ending in plain form] と思います"
meaning
"I think (that) [phrase]",
"だ is the plain form of desu.
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese-grammar/da/ For those of you are quite unsure of "だ", I found an article or something online helped me understand, might be of use to you guys
I left off the Mr. entirely since that's how I translate x-san in my head, always. After all, yeah, you can use it with personal names, and it doesn't have a gender, etc. It gets thrown in always so you have to deduce from context when it means something in English and when you can leave it out. It also depends on the level of politeness. When I see "I think" at the end of a sentence, it often implies a higher level of humbleness so I probably should have left the Mr. (or Ms.) in.
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It's entirely logical to deduce in this instance that a title is required as 田中 is a very common Japanese surname. The gender is irrelevant as we can't deduce gender from a surname so any title of any gender should be accepted as a valid translation.
お母さん is also wife? I always hear that word used for "your wife", but it was marked wrong.
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2020.5.9 No, sometimes wives will refer to their husbands as お父さん and husbands refer to their wives as お母さん when they have kids. They say it from the prospective of their kids
so I wrote is as 'I think Ms. Tanaka's mother is a teacher. but does it need 'that' because it insist on, "I think that Ms. Tanaka's mother is a teacher.
How would you say 'I think that Miss Tanaka's mother WAS a teacher? I'm guessing it would still end in ます since you ARE thinking...
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Earlier i saw a discussion on YASUMI-DA , and the DA here means it is a DECLARA. YASUMI-DA = "It's a holiday!!".
In this instance...what are declaring ?? "She's a TEACHER!!!!!" 《《《《 THAT dramatic ???
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On my computer, quite a lot of sentences where one chooses words with an apostrophe, like this one, give you a note that says that there is an extra space. There is no available choice with one less space, so my guess is that it was encoded incorrectly. Is anyone else having this issue? It doesn't happen all the time, but it happened on this one and many others.
I reported something similar a year ago, getting a typo over the apostrophe not matching on the word bank options!