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- "Please show me a picture of …
"Please show me a picture of your child."
Translation:子供の写真を見せてください。
46 Comments
846
in chinese, that means "write real". photo in chinese is 照片. sorry if this is pedantic to some, but as a student of chinese the usage differences are interesting to me.
Does it become harder or easier to study Japanese Kanji after already studying Chinese?
In many ways, it makes it easier, as one is already familiar with how characters work and knows many of the kanji already (and can guess the meanings of new ones more easily). The main problem comes with writing, as many kanji are written differently from their Chinese counterparts, so some adjustment and relearning is necessary.
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Yes. Traditional and simplified characters make it a teensy bit harder to recognize kanji, due to some of the changed radicals.
The pronunciations of many Kanji are very different from the standard Chinese. Some Kanji meanings are different from Chinese counterparts too.
It helps you if you already have a firm grasp of one of the two languages and got most of the important Kanjis memorized, but if you learn both at the same time at beginner level, the meaning and pronunciation might cause conflicts in your head :)
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写真 is also finding its way into the Chinese language as a Japanese loanword now, designating only portrait photos
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And in case you didn't notice it: 真 in Japanese is written differently from its Chinese counterpart ;)
We must be aware of that, because the chinese form may sometimes appears within japanese text, depending on the font being used.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9C%9F#Alternative_forms
FYI, in Chinese 写真 actually refers to a specific kind of photograph, namely portrait. Here 写 means to depict or imitate (a somewhat archaic meaning). So it makes sense that photograph is translated as 写真, because a photos depict real objects.
Chinese pronunciation of 写真 (xiezhen) sounds like 'session', as in 'photo session'. I'm 75% sure that's the reasoning behind it.
I have learned that someone else child is お子さん.子供 is the speaker's child. Could a native speaker verify it?
Is this sentence polite? If we are saying "your" child, should we be adding honorifics, othwise it could be "Please show me a picture of 'a' child" (which is even creepier!)
Another one of those questions where hovering over a word gives you a kanji you've never seen before and isn't among the options in the answer. This sort of thing is most often why I get questions wrong, because I'm forced to guess.
Does anyone else have this problem, or am I just missing something?
it's a real problem, when you see it report it as a dictionary hint error.
Yep. I resort to checking the dictionary app Jsho. I look up either the English word, or I look up the word bank readings. You end up learning a lot!
I guess in context you'll probably figure out I'm not asking to see a photo of any random child, but is it common in practice to omit あなた here?
My understanding is that using あなた is not very polite. Someone on another lesson said it's the way police would speak, someone else said it's robotic. If you were worried they'd be confused, say if multiple different children had come up in conversation, you might use their name plus honorific or just a title (like 先生)
I agree with others here that this Japanese sentence (asking for a picture of 子ども) lacks politeness.
i thought that first too but i think that would be "picture's child" instead of "child's picture" and that's why.
I think "child's picture" means something different than "picture of a child". The former would be a picture that a child drew or took.
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しゃしんのこども -> Child's picture. こどものしゃしん -> Picture of a child. You have to figure out what makes sense. With の particle the first noun affects the second and "picture's child" wouldn't make sense.
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子供 is often written as 子ども. I've heard that using the kanji for "domo" shows a certain kind of attitude, but I'm not sure what kind. I assume 子ども is the more child-loving version of it.
The answer in English is very specific, but to my limited understanding you could also translate this as "your child's picture" (as in a picture drawn or taken by the child). How off base am I? How would you write "picture made by your child"?
