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- "男の子がうみでおよいでいます。"
"男の子がうみでおよいでいます。"
Translation:A boy is swimming in the ocean.
52 Comments
272
That really depends on the person. Syllables per second wise, it is actually a slower language than a lot of other languages.
What would be the difference between oyoideimasu and oyogimasu? Would they be interchangable?
I believe oyogimasu is more like "will swim". Oyoideimasu is a present progressive, like the ~ing forms in English. So more like "I am swimming".
"Oyogimasu" could be either present tense or future tense. But yes, otherwise you're right.
That structure has swimming as a descriptive term rather than the main verb, and as such the focus has been shifted away from the act of swimming, and there's probably a structure in Japanese that reflects that better than this sentence.
That's an usual way of saying "a swimming boy is in the ocean", where swimming is an adjective rather than a predicate. But te form + imasu is translated as a present continuous form verb, which is "is swimming" in this sentence.
Shouldn't "The boys are swimming in the ocean" also be accepted? Ambiguous pluralization and whatnot.
But in English "swims" can also be the present continuous form. "look, a boy swims in the ocean. How peculiar".
When I hear "otokonoko" I always think 男の娘 instead of 男の子... Manga has ruined me
海で泳いでいる男の子がいます。
Umi de oyoide iru otoko no ko ga imasu.
There is a boy swimming in the sea.
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Just out of curiosity, would, "there is a boy swimming in the sea," also be an acceptable interpretation? I had this marked incorrect and am wondering if I should report it or just focus on learning the given translation instead. Thanks! :)
You would use the verb いる when saying "there is", so no it wouldn't mean the same.
We should report it.
I am pretty sure that うみ (海) also means sea. Besides, it works better that way. That is unless what they mean is that there's really a boy swimming in the middle of the (Pacific) ocean.
"Sea" is an acceptable (and probably more common) translation for 海 (umi), but there's nothing strange to me as a person who lived near the Atlantic Ocean most of my life to say "swimming in the ocean". I go to the beach and go swimming in the ocean. No need to be out in the middle of it.
Hm, I guess you have a point.
Living in an archipelagic nation though, saying it just strikes me as strange.
I understand the feeling completely, saying "swimming in the sea" used to strike me as just as strange. Now I live in a country with a sea, but it still doesn't roll off of the tongue easily.
My native language is English, sorry if I sounded more interesting than I actually am haha. I'm a language nerd, though, so that's really fascinating to me to see the connection between dagat and karagatan.
For me, it's not a language thing, it's a geographical thing. I never swam in a sea, so it sounded weird to me that people would swim in a sea. When I went to the beach, we swam in the ocean, and the ocean covers most of the earth's surface, so where else would anyone swim? Now I live near the Sea of Japan, and I've started to realize that there's plenty of places in the world where people are surrounded by seas rather than oceans.
My native language is English, sorry if I sounded more interesting than I actually am haha. I'm a language nerd, though, so that's really fascinating to me to see the connection between dagat and karagatan.
I see. I was just thinking it might be a cultural-geographic thing. Let me just break down the word "karagatan'" a bit, since it's also kinda curious. From the root word "dagat" the /d/ changes to an /r/ (since they're allophones) and the affix "ka- -an" is a special kind of augmentative that gives some kind of a collective quality (think man vs. humanity). Add "sang-" in front of it and you'd have a word that's comparable to the English "the world ocean". A similar construction is used in the word for "universe", "sangkalawakan" (literally, "all of [outer] space").
As for your second point. It's really true for my case. Our islands here are surrounded by seas rather than oceans (except for the eastern shore where some parts can be considered to face the Pacific ocean directly). Hence, I was actually thinking of other cultures which were influenced by their relation with the sea which then influenced their language.
Oh, you do live near the Sea of Japan?! That makes you interesting in my book.
And oh, I think we're all language nerds here in Duolingo. XD It's just the degree that varies, I guess.
Now you got me curious. What's your native tongue and how would you translate this sentence in your language?
Because in my native tongue, it's most naturally translated as "May batang naliligo sa dagat" (There is a child swimming in the sea.) / "May batang naliligo sa karagatan" (There is a child swimming in the ocean.) With our word for ocean (karagatan) being an augmented form of our word for sea (dagat) . Is the opposite true in your native language?
I recognized うみ from Mariko Goto's song ドロン.
”ドロンのうみで溺れてみたい" "I'd like to drown in a sea of drones"
泳ぐ (oyogu) is a gu verb, so for the te form, gu becomes ide, 泳いで (oyoide). To make the present progressive, you add imasu, およいでいます。
Verbs have different て-forms depending on the verb ending. Look up the て-form song.
Yes you are correct. 海 means "sea", not "ocean." I think they used "ocean" because the people who do the translating are young and inexperienced.
海 also means "beach". In Japan, if you want to spend the day at the beach, you say 海にいきたい . Swimming in the sea at the beach is called 海水浴 so if you want to go for a swim at the beach, you say 海水浴にいきたい
I know Japanese adults who do not know the difference between a sea and an ocean, and everyone I have ever met calls the Pacific Ocean 海, so I don’t think it’s fair to call the contributors “inexperienced” for their translation choice. “Sea” is a correct translation, but in actual usage “ocean” is also correct.
Relax, IsolaCiao. That's not meant as an insult, but a free pass. When you're young, you get to be inexperienced and make mistakes that are due to being inexperienced. Just like when you're old you get a pass on dressing funny or wearing ugly glasses. It's just the nature of things.
Incidentally, I'm a little concerned about your statement about the Pacific Ocean being called a "sea." The Pacific Ocean IS a sea. "Sea" is a general category of saltwater bodies that includes bays, harbors and oceans. "Ocean" is specific to large bodies of saltwater. But I understand the confusion because there are bodies of water that are big, but not big enough to be called an ocean, so they default to being called "seas," such as the Sea of Japan or the Mediterranean Sea, because there is no term for a medium-sized body of saltwater, which leads people to believe that a sea is a medium-sized body of saltwater. Experience. You'll get there eventually. Until then, enjoy the benefits of your youth, including your free pass :)
Hu, why 海で and not に? After all, 山に登, what it is different with swimming into the sea?
When you are saying where an action takes place, you use で and when you say where something exists you use に. In this case, the boy is swimming (an action), so you need で。
The に in 山に登ります (yama ni noborimasu) is serving a different function. It's showing the direction of your movement (towards the top of the mountain).
If you wrote "a boy is swimming in the sea" and it wasn't accepted, then it's worth an error report. "Sea" is accepted as a translation for 海 on most questions I've seen.
