"わたしのお父さんはタクシーのうんてんしゅです。"
Translation:My father is a taxi driver.
53 Comments
51
It's not just redundant, in most cases it's rude! The reason you use 父 for your own father and お父さん for other people's fathers is that the latter is an honorific form to show respect. Using the honorific form while speaking to others indicates that you believe the listener should also show your father that respect, and due to Japanese's in-group/out-group mentality, also implies that your group (i.e. your family) is socially situatated above the listener. For that reason, お父さん should generally only be used while speaking directly to your father, or to somebody who shares the same in-group as you and your father (e.g. your siblings or your mother).
The question I don't understand is, why is the 私の necessary? If you were talking to your siblings or your mother, whose father would already be implied by context.
- 51
It's not a problem. I'm saying you are correct, it should be 父 in most cases, but not because of redundancy. It is used for politeness.
Is 運転手[untenshu/うんてんしゅ] a more polite or higher class word for うんてんしゃ:
運転手 [うんてんしゅ]: (P, n) driver, chauffeur 運転者 [うんてんしゃ]: (n) driver (of a vehicle)
How about 運転車? Self-driving car? (Apparently so.) I find it amusing that a car-driver and a car driver sound the same.
It seems that 手 means "hand" and 者 means "person". What that tells us about the implications of 運転手 versus 運転者、I can't say.
I'll be on the lookout for an 運転猫、though.
Keep in mind that "hand" in English can mean "An agent; a servant, or manual labourer, especially in compounds; a workman, trained or competent for special service or duty; a performer more or less skilful." We have words like "deckhand" which is a person who works on a ship.
In Japanese, 手 can work the same way.
It turns out self-driving car is called 自走車 (jisōsha) in Japanese :)
手 comes from Chinese, and it's indeed interesting why some professions are referred to as ~手 instead of ~者, e.g. 射手 (archer), 歌手 (singer), 水手 (sailor, not used in Japanese), etc. None of them seem to be associated with the traditional "upper class" thogh.
All I knew was when I googled 運転車 I got articles on self-driving cars, including the one on Wikipedia, which calls the concept in full 自動運転車、"jidōuntensha". I didn't do any more research into it at the time.
Maybe one is about the job and the other is just pointing who is conducting the car
Where did the 者 come from?
Interestingly enough, a pedestrian is a 歩行者, not 手.
I didn't find 運転者, but I stumbled across this at Wikipedia. (Sorry, no English page available.)
Executive summary: Variants include 運転手, 運転士, ドライバー, 機関士, 操縦士, オペレーター, 車夫, 駕篭かき...
旅客輸送を職業とし、ドライバーやプロドライバーとも呼ばれる。自家用の貨物自動車や乗用車、自家用バスを運転する者も運転手と呼ばれる。 これに対し、（自動車運転免許以外の）資格が必要な鉄道や軌道の電車・汽車、船舶や航空機、または機械を運転する職業は機関士や運転士、操縦士と呼ばれる。鉄道や軌道では、機関士や運転士と呼ばれる（動力車操縦者を参照）。一部の鉄道・軌道業者では運転手を社内呼称として用いる業者もある。 クレーンなどの操縦者は、運転士あるいはオペレーターと呼ばれる。 旅客輸送に従事するかつての職業には、人力車の「車夫」や、駕篭をかつぐ「駕篭かき」などもあったが、現在では観光向けのものがほとんどである。
Yoy can use 父さん 母さん to be polite regarding your own parents without the honourific お, when speaking to strangers or aquaintances.
This sentence is indeed awkward...
Often in a pejorative or deprecating sense.
ウチの父さんったら！
I associate the pattern with teenagers. Of all ages.
- 51
Can somebody think of a situation where this construction would be appropriate and not rude? If you were talking to someone in your immediate family, 私の would already be implied, and would probably know what your dad does for a living. A parent talking to their child? (Though I would imagine おじいさん more appropriate in that case.) A cousin maybe? I'm not sure how far the concept of family in-group goes for the purpose of words like お父さん and お母さん.
- 138
- If it is written in your own dairy for example then it wpuld be perfectly OK.
- If this is spoken by a child then it would be very natural.
You can say this to a friend but 私の would most likely be implied. You most likely wouldn't use 父/母 while talking to a friend as it's too formal and would seem distant.
Because English requires the indefinite article "a" or "an" when describing someone's occupation. "I am a baker", "She is an architect". However, if you using the plural, it is omitted. "They are doctors".
No, this is right, assuming the person delivering the sentence is a child who has not learned the social code. Coming from a child who should know better because of age, or an adult, however...
Define "child." My definition includes Japanese university students who have spent too long cramming for university entrance exams (大学入試) that that they have yet to experience adult society.
This should be: 私の父はたくしいのうんてしゅです。(it wouldnt make taxi into katakana for some reason but thats what i meant)
Could this also be "My father is the driver of the taxi"? That's what I put, since I was still thinking about the sentence "Who is the driver of this taxi?"
- 138
Maybe "My father is the driver of a taxi" but definitely not "My father is the driver of the taxi" because there is no この/その and the mentioned taxi can only be an unspecific one.
Not true. この/その is not required for a sentence to be translated as "the", it's just that in some contexts they happen to correspond to "the". In other contexts, including many sentences on Duolingo itself, Japanese doesn't differentiate between definite and indefinite and both are acceptable.
- 138
But there is no context where it can be "the taxi driver" in this case. Some other sentences may be acceptable but I just cannot find a situation where it can be a definitive here. Normally, if it qualifies to be definitive (i.e. その omitted), the noun needs to be at the beginning (as a topic - but there are some cases which does not have this restriction), not in the complement part.
- そこにテーブルがあります (There is a table there) - cannot be "the" table, you need to add その to specify it.
- テーブルはそこにあります (A/The table is there)
Exception is
- 私はバスに乗ります (I get on a/the bus) - here in English if we say "the" bus it actually means "a" bus (not specifically that bus).
So suddenly after all these lessons inconsistently (not) asking/including any possessive pronoun, they are now an explicit thing. I mean they aren't this difficult/advanced......
can we please get the kanji for 私 it is so much easier to read than わたし!
The impoliteness of the sentence aside, why is a statement about a father being a taxi driver in the "direction" section?
Probably because a driver drives someone somewhere. The lessons don't have customised sentences, Duolingo just searches for sentences containing the words it's supposed to teach in the lesson.
For fun, I ran my (accepted) version and theirs past SpanishDict and Giggle Translate.
• My father drives a taxi.
• My father is a taxi driver.
SD didn't insert the definite articles that I half-expected, but conflated the two with a single translation, making me feel vindicated.
Mi padre conduce un taxi.
GT distinguished between the two.
× 私の父はタクシー運転手です。
½ 父はタクシーを運転します。
√ 父はタクシー運転手です。
Now where have I seen the first one before? Could it be that the course providers are supplementing their junior high textbooks with the even less reliable GT?
