"This year was a good year."
Translation:今年はいい年でした。
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One's death is the other's bread.
This is something we say in the Netherlands. I don't know if it is said in English as well. It just means that something that is really bad for one person is beneficial to someone else. Media companies for instance are thriving since so many people got locked up inside. The headset and webcam industries are also doing really well since so many people had to work from home. And there are many more who saw opportunities in this mess. So I wouldn't be surprised if there were a fair amount of people who had a great year so far.
if ten people did well in 2020, and 7 billion did poorly, i would not say that 2020 was a good year, even if i was among the 10.
i could say it was a good year for me... but without a qualification or context, ”good year” defaults to the largest scope possible.
Can someone explain me when it is pronounced as nen? and when as toshi? Thanks.
When a kanji is working with another kanji to form one word--a compound word is called 熟語 jukugo--each kanji (almost always) uses it's onyomi form. When a kanji stands alone, it (almost always) uses its kunyomi form.
年's onyomi pronunciation is ねん, and kunyomi is とし. In a jukugo word like 今年, onyomi pronunciations would be used, while 年 by itself means that kunyomi will be used.
yeah so like DaVantor said it's not always like that so you kinda just have to memorize the readings word by word. knda frustrating ik lol
I'm pretty sure nen is used as the counter for year years eg. 三年 = san nen = 3 years, whereas toshi is referring to the year in general, if that makes sense
Can one use the "~katta" conjugation when the noun is expressed? ex: "yokatta nen desu" instead of "ii nen deshita"
No; in that case, you'd conjugate the verb/copula at the end rather than the adjective. The adjective only gets conjugated to past tense when it's not prenominal (i.e. before a noun).
That would change the structure of the sentence from "This year was a good year" to just "This year was good."
Is it safe to assume that いい年 should be read いいとし and not, like I currently hear, いいねん?
yeah, the 年 here is just a noun with an adjective。ねん usually appear in compounds or as a counter.
How would I say this sentence informally?
Does 今年は年いかった work? Or would I have to omit the second 年 if I wanted to be informal?
今年はいい年だったね
「いい年」 is an i-adjective with a noun, so you need the だ to predicate the sentence.
This might fit a bit better- 気持ち悪い https://jisho.org/search/%E6%B0%97%E6%8C%81%E3%81%A1%E6%82%AA%E3%81%84
