"学校はたのしいですか？"
Translation:Is school fun?
40 Comments
What is the difference between omoshiroi and tanoshii and when is one used over the other?
面白い(おもしろい) means more, "interesting" or "funny", whereas 楽しい(たのしい) means "exciting" or "fun". In this context, "enjoyable" as well.
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omoshiroi - interesting or funny (amusing). tanoshii - fun as in enjoyable. So omoshiroi could refer to an interesting or amusing, person, thing, story, event etc while tanoshii refers to a place or thing/activity that is fun to do.
Something is omoshiroi. (Somebody is )tanoshii due to sth.
Actually, I think the better translation here is, Do you have fun in the school?
When we (Japanese people) ask がっこうは楽しいですか? to you, yes it means 'Are you having fun at school/enjoying school?
If you want to ask 'Is school fun (place)?' then the question needs to be 'がっこうはたのしいところ(place)ですか?' (although you don't ask such a question even in English, I am sure (^^;) )
This is because たのしい、しあわせ (happy)、かなしい (sad) etc express feelings, as same as English.
When someone asks me 'Is school fun?', I automatically think the person is asking if I am enjoying school. i.e. if you ask your friend たのしい?, that question asks Are you having fun ?'
So again your translarion is correct.
So obvious. Japanese language is not as precise as English. But we should not translate the language word by word.
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Generally when one uses the word "but" it introduces a contrary position to the one proceeding it.
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"Do you have fun in the school" is not a natural sounding English translation.
There's absolutely nothing that would indicate this is the "fun" meaning rather than the "interesting" one :(
You would expect to see 面白い (おもしろい) if you intend on saying, "interesting". 楽しい can be either fun or exciting, which are pretty much synonymous.
Fun in school is something parents would often ask their children after nursery or kindergarten classes. Less commonly asked as kids get older and older
"Are you enjoying school?" is correct. No need for "your". Get on the case!
So, going by what I learnt in an earlier question, could I change this to past tense like so? 「学校はたのしかったですか?」... "Was school fun?"
I wrote "Is school enjoyable" but got it wrong - the correct answer was given as "Is the school enjoyable". But my answer is more accurate than the one given!
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In what way? Your meaning is unclear. Do you mean that Duo is fixating on a particular point of English grammar and choosing only to accept that as a correct answer? I think both Andreapert12's answer and Duo's answer should both be considered correct - it is just a matter of people reporting errors or other possible correct answers and Duo building their list of acceptable answers accordingly.
I was marked wrong for saying "Is school enjoyable". The correct answer is supposedly "Is the school enjoyable"
Answered "Is school enjoyable"? Duolingo tells me: You need the article "the" here. Then suggests: "Is school fun?" What the actual...
Why is「 学校は楽しいですか？」not accepted ? Is there something I'm not getting ? If that's just because I used kanji, then that's ridiculous ^^'
I think 面白い is more of an expressed opinion, and 楽しい is expressed more emotionally. If you watch to a lot of Jdramas, Anime, or just Japanese speeches, you can actually distinguish what kind of phrase native speakers use.
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They actually mean two completely different things - omoshiroi - interesting or funny/amusing in a ha ha laugh at a joke sort of way. tanoshii means fun or something that is enjoyable ie. something you like doing. There is also okashii which means funny - as in laughing so hard you have tears streaming down your face funny (that is the point of difference with omoshiroi - omoshiroi is something that might make you smile and/or chuckle) AND it also means funny as in strange/odd and can be used to describe something tasting strange, amongst other things.
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Because in your translation enjoy is a verb - in the original sentence it is an adjective so it should be - is school fun or is school enjoyable.
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Absolutely - we should all strive to avoid speaking in "translation-ese" at all costs whilst still trying to convey in natural English what the Japanese is saying.
Don't know about whether school is fun or not, but the comments on this particular question was quite enjoyable to read... 楽しかったね？
