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- "うたはうたいません。"
"うたはうたいません。"
Translation:I do not sing songs.
58 Comments
I guess this is going for a very specific comparison of "sing" うた and "songs" うたい but is this a common way to state things like this? In English we'd usually just say "I don't sing" with the "songs" implied, as the "songs" part would sound redundant.
Yes, it's a common way of saying it in Japanese (not only when negated). I know, it sounds kinda weird and redundant.
I think that the reason for this is that the verb うたう more literally means 'to recite'. You can recite a song, but you can also recite poetry, for instance. So in Japanese. the 'song' bit is not necessarily implied.
Please note that it is the other way around: うた is the noun "song(s)" and うたいます is the verb "sing". :)
歌い is the nominalized form or 連用形(れんようけい）of the verb 歌う. It's used to create the masu form of the verb 歌う.
As in:
歌います
歌いません
歌いました
歌いませんでした
The form can also be used when connecting two main sentences (kinda like if you use "and" between two sentences in English).
As it's a nominalized form, when it comes to some verbs, it can also be used as a proper noun. However, maybe also since the noun 歌 exists, 歌い is not used as a standalone noun.
Sorry, meant it as a question. Can someone explain the difference? I learned utau somewhere else.
1378
歌う (うたう) is the plain form of the verb to sing, for which the polite level form is 歌います (うたいます). Because the plain forms are the ones you'll find in a dictionary, you could also them the dictionary or citation form. They can be used when neither the polite level or fancier honorific or humble forms are called for, on the basis of one's relationship with the person one is speaking to and/or about.
As someone else (whose name unfortunately doesn't show in my DL app) mentioned the polite level forms are formed with うたい. The basic plain forms are: 歌う (うたう) pres. 歌わない (うたわない) neg. 歌たった(うたった) past 歌わなかった (うたわなかった) neg. past 歌たって(うたって) -te form
Does this question literally say, "The song does not sing?" I'm just curious.
I mean kinda, but 歌(うた) は most likely refers to songs as a topic of discussion rather than an active subject that's doing the singing. A better literal translation would be "As for songs, (I) do not sing them". The issue of using は vs をhas been discussed in other comment sections.
I fear that would mean that the contextual singer doesn't sing the current contextually specified song.
Without context, it's hard say. I'll ask around. If I forget to share my results, let me know.
I tried sticking my phrase into Google Translate just now and it actually translates it exactly as "the song does not sing." I know that's worth very little, though.
But English-to-Japanese for "the song does not sing" results in 「歌は歌わない」. Thoughts?
If anyone is wondering about this, although Idk why would you, you usually give a honorific to something that is not alive or shouldn't be, to emphasis that's now animated in the context.
歌ちゃんは歌が歌わない
歌さんは歌いません
No, it literally means "[I] do not sing songs".
In theory you could be singing other things than songs, perhaps not so much in English because the English word "sing" is strictly tied to "songs", so it sounds superfluous to specify what you are singing, but the Japanese word 歌う has a slightly wider meaning and includes what in English would be "recite" and "chant", which is probably why it makes more sense to be more specific in Japanese. For comparison, by the way, in English you would say "I recite a poem", even though the only thing you can recite (that I can think of) is actually a poem, so logically it would be suffice to say "I recite", but we don't usually shorten it that much (probably because people don't really recite all that much nowadays) and instead use the full expression "I recite a poem".
Bonus: 歌 also has a broader meaning than one may think. Historically, 歌 was the main word used for ‘poem’. Etymologically, Japanese has a strong connection between song and poetry, which makes sense
- 942
This is a great comment (+1) but we can recite many things in English, a pledge or oath, a speech, lyrics, a quote, an alphabet, it's a somewhat flexible word.
The given sentence isn't in can-form. It is simply stated that the person doesn't sing. "I cannot sing the songs" would be translated as 「そのうたはうたうことができません。」
Strangely, I don't sing songs was corrected to WE don't sing songs. What makes this a "we" instead of a "I"?
I don't know if it happened here, but sometimes you make a mistake, and because there are several possible translations for the sentence, the example correct answer uses (for example) a different subject, like we instead of I
So it looks like that's the correction, but you actually got a different part wrong - maybe just a typo. It's something to watch out for, it's happened to me a few times! Especially on the mobile app with a feisty autocorrect
It is the same, it's all in the context. The same sentence would also work for he, she, they or even you.
The subject is implied in the Japanese sentence, and could be "I/you/he/she/it/we/they".
See @Aki-kun's comment above:
"歌い is the nominalized form or 連用形(れんようけい）of the verb 歌う. It's used to create the masu form of the verb 歌う.
As in:
歌います
歌いません
歌いました
歌いませんでした
The form can also be used when connecting two main sentences (kinda like if you use "and" between two sentences in English).
As it's a nominalized form, when it comes to some verbs, it can also be used as a proper noun. However, maybe also since the noun 歌 exists, 歌い is not used as a standalone noun."
It's because duolingo kinda makes everything confusing. Essentially duolingo is just a somewhat elaborate flashcard system, so duolingo mercilessly chops up words so that you can have a separate clickable tile for ます. And personally, I think Aki-kun's comment uses too many fancy words and introduces too many concepts at once making it even more confusing. For now, what you have to remember is that: 「歌い」 is not a word in itself. 「歌う」 is the dictionary form of the verb "to sing", but also the plain form, you can theoretically just say "歌う" and it's gonna mean "I will sing". 「歌います」 means the same thing except it's a polite version of it. 「うた」 itself just means "a song".
