"わたしのあねはおよぐのがじょうずです。"
Translation:My older sister is good at swimming.
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わたし(I) の (possessive particle) あね (elder sister)
は (topic particle, referring to My Elder Sister)
およぐ (swim, plain form)
の (nominalizer, changing swim into a noun)
It captures an entire sentence, ending with a verb or adjective (verbs behave very much like adjectives in Japanese), and turns that situation into a noun. (Called nominalization.)
A subtlety is that it does this in a way which generally refers to that situation occurring at the same time as the outer sentence it's used in. It will especially always be used with sensory verbs like 見る or 聞く to explain what you see or hear, etc.
There is a similar word こと which you'll also run into quite a lot. It also turns the preceding clause into a noun, but more abstractly, not suggesting that it's going on at the same moment as the overall thing you're saying. For example it will get used along with 約束する to turn the thing being promised into a noun.
Thank you Keith and Cale. Doing this without the threads make it a tougher journey.
After some exercises, I could get a better grasp of what was it about.
Does this sentence count as bragging in japanese since you are saying how great your family is?
Strange how they translate あに to "big brother" but あね to "elder sister". I'm not native to english, but using the word "elder" specificly for women is not a thing, is it?
No, it is not. Big/older/elder are all interchangeable when referring to a sibling who is older. Although "elder" is typically somewhat formal compared to the other two in everyday vernacular (in American English).
You are correct. The only thing I can think of is thay some females might be offended to be called big as it might imply fat. But most younger siblings would call the elder sibling their "big sister" or "big brother". I think the real reason for the difference here is that the Japanese course is very new and has a bunch of inconsistencies in it.
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In another course I learnt that swimming is "suiei". How is that different from "oyoguno"?
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But "oyoguno" is also the name of the activity of swimming, the particle "no" makes the difference here.
True. The difference is that およぐの is a modified verb meaning "the act(ivity) of swimming" (in whatever way), while すいえい is a noun that's mostly used in reference to the sport of "swimming". The latter can also be turned into verb by adding する though and sounds a bit more formal/serious.
