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- "He eats too much."
"He eats too much."
Translation:彼は食べすぎです。
31 Comments
Translating this from Japanese to English, 食べすぎです is closer to "(s)he is an overeater", but that isn't said as often as "(s)he eats too much", which comes down to the same thing. If you had to translate it EN->JP, then 食べすぎます would indeed be a more literal translation.
525
Does the "desu" option make it sound more permanent or habit-like that the "masu" option?
I'm actually a little intrigued by this as well. In English, we prefer to use the passive voice or adjectives over intransitivity ("The door is open" is much more common than "The door opens"). But in Japanese, intransitive verbs are all over the place, even in verbs like describing someone's weight (e.g. 痩せる) or emotions (e.g. 疲れる). So I'm curious to see why a non-verbal attribute is favored over the intransitive ーすぎ verb-stem-suffix.
- 614
2020.5.16 @alex
The です and +ます alone just makes it neutral polite.
You'd have to add some time words to make it habitual or change it into a state with +ている。
私は毎日歯「は」を磨きます「みが」。 I brush my teeth every day.
学校で働いています。 I work at a school. ( continuing employment )
@obito I'd say this is a "feature" of the Japanese language. If you are going to skip subjects, pronouns, even objects at times, then the verbs have to contort more to fill in the information gaps. For example, in English:
I can't open the door.
The Japanese prefer to say
ドアはあかない。 The door won't open.
Even something as mundane as this is quite common
折った「おった」 I broke it into pieces
折れた「おれた」 It broke into pieces ( not intentionally, but accidentally or naturally )
折られた「おられた」 It broke it into pieces. ( intentionally ) It was broken into pieces by someone.
It really needs to have an object to use 食べすぎます.
eg かれはすしを食べすぎます。He eats too much sushi.
食べすぎです means (to be) an overeater.
This is one of those situations where direct JP <-> EN translations are difficult, and you need to translate the "idea" rather than the literal words.
for me it doesn't allow that answer, which is supposed to be the right answer, reported
I believe writing VERB-過ぎ with the kanji is quite uncommon, however; it's usually just VERB-すぎ.
Not nice to slip Kanji into the same sentence that was written without it just five sentences ago. Are we supposed to just guess?? Not an effective way to teach or learn.
RobertEddy,
The reason I read behind non-introduced words at least was to move it more quickly into long term memory. One has to think about context and try to figure it out. (There won't always be enough context. But, the effort can still prove fruitful.) And then if one makes an error, it is another marker for the brain. However, every word can't be like that. It wouldn't' provide context and people would be too inundated with frustration.
Don't take this as official explanation though. The only thing I know is that someone said it in the forum. I don't recall whether it was staff or not.
However, I do recall that the CEO Luis said introducing some words this way was an intentional strategy some years back.
As for the kanji situation, I dunno if the same would apply. It could. But, it might not. Kanji can present different challenges than phonetic text. I don't know enough about the convergence and divergence between the two though.
This thing suddenly switched to all kanji which it hasn't really introduced to me yet!
What is the pronunciation for the kanji for 'he'? I'm not getting any audio for it
Is the 彼は absolutely necessary for this sentence, ive noticed in most cases pronouns are omittable but was marked wrong on this occasion
- 614
2020.7.31
I think if I were to say this out loud to someone out of the blue without the 彼は, I would mean it as "You ate too much." or "I ate too much" if I said it like I was stuffed
