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- "My mother has ten siblings."
"My mother has ten siblings."
Translation:母は兄弟が十人います。
72 Comments
Bro, I literally hunt for your comments. I’m getting on the site just to be able to comment how grateful I am to your time and your no non-sense, level-headed approach. Lots of respect and admiration.
If you comment back, I don’t know if I’ll see it, because I’m getting off this clunky browser interface and back on to the app, where we have no voice
wait so right before this i had one where the only difference was it was dad had eight, it said it was 父 は 八 人 の きょうだい が います。so i tried the same with this one (except there wasn't a の available) 母は十人きょうだいがいます but it said it was wrong? why? and isn't sentence order a bit interchangeable in Japanese as long as the verb is at the end and groupings stay together? i guess it's because the の wasn't there it had to be said in a different way...
You're right, it's because of the missing no 「の」(no, not the glitch Pokémon).
ELI5 In counters, if you want to say the number before the thing, you say Person/subject は counter のthing/object (が) います
The other way to say it would be
Person/subject は thing/object が counter います
I guess you could say it's the difference between "My father's brothers, there are eight of them" and "My father has eight brothers" (not entirely accurate comparison)
Because that's not how you count things in Japanese.
"There are X things" Thing がX [Counter for X] あります/います.
There are 3 books = 本が三冊あります。
There are 5 glasses = ガラスが五本あります。
There are 7 plates = 皿が七枚あります。
There are 9 rabbits = ウサギが九羽あります。
冊 being the counter for books, 本 the one for cylindrical objects, 枚 for flat objects, 羽 for birds and rabbits, etc.
When you don't know the specific counter for an object, you can use つ instead.
There is one sphere = 圏が一つあります。
There are tons of different counters; look them up! http://jisho.org/search/counter%20for
Sweet lord almighty... that's a lot of counters! :o So many different counters for various animals. Guess I'm out of becoming a Japanese farmer anytime soon.
Thank you for the link :)
1228
I agree with Ginkkou.
If you are determined to put the number together with the noun, you need a quantifier as well as the particle の.
e.g. スマップは 五人の 男性アイドルグループです
SMAP is a boy band of 5 people.
Note the sentence structure and focus are already not the same as in the example of Duo, even in English.
「母は兄弟が十人います」
【ははは・きょうだいが・じゅうにん→います】
more about the ～人 counter here:
- 198
Afraid not, 姉妹 means specifically sisters, while 兄弟 can mean either brothers or siblings.
母 means "my mother". so saying わたしの母 is like saying "my my mother". other people's mothers are お母さん（おかあさん）
- 1228
母 means mother (rather than my mother) and it is a plain word without honorific value. So it is often used on one's own mother. However it can also be used on other people's mother if there's no need to show respect.
You're technically not wrong, but it's so very rude that it's become wrong to use 母 for other people's mothers (the following also applies to 父 - father). If you just say 母, you are humbling or placing your mother on a lower pedestal than that of the listener. This is super respectful and pretty much expected of you. If you use お母さん, you are using the honorific prefix お- and are placing them up (which is a different form of respect). You can use お母さん to talk about your mother and even to your mother, but it's rude to use 母 when talking about someone else's mother (it's kind of like saying that you have the power to humble her or are more important than her).
Does that make sense?
I keep leaving out the "i" masu. I haven't wrapped my brain around what the "i" is for in this context.
- 531
The verb is "います”. It means to exist but is only used for animate figures. "ます" is part of the conjugation of the verb.
The base verb is いる. Think of '-ます' as something like '-ing', it doesn't stand alone, and it is the polite form of any verb. If you were talking with your friends or family you wouldn't even use ます。
いる means the exact same thing as います, but います is more formal. Kanji link's series explains conjugation fairly well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOXuIYVzyL4&list=PLE6S_Q0SX_mBtzG17ho7YER6vmzCPJ3B4
it told me my answer was wrong because I wrote 十人 and not '10'. why would I use '10'?
- 149
お母さんは「姉妹」が十人います。 Is it wrong? Why does 姉妹 「しまい」not work? If the term "brothers" 「兄弟」 きょうだい can be understood as siblings. Shouldn't "sisters" 「姉妹」also be understood as siblings?
Why is there no honourific here (right term?) for mother? Usually it's o-(mother)-san, ne?
- 1228
Because it is "my mother". The speaker needs to be modest about people or things related to him/her. Plain or modest terms should be used.
- 1228
I'm not sure if it is "wrong", but at least it is not needed. Some nouns are already implying plurality or possibility of plurality and it is not necessary to add たち as we would add -s in English. 兄弟 is referring to a class of people by identity. 兄弟たち would be the collective of such people. I think it is acceptable to say something like 母の兄弟たちがみんな海外に住んでいます/My mother's siblings are all living aboard.
I don't understand the difference between 十兄弟 and 十の兄弟 . they seem like the same thing to me and duolingo says one is right and one is not.
Just swapped '父' for '母', and '六人' for '十人' from my response '私の父は六人のきょうだいがいます。' to the other question in this section about the phrase 'My dad has 6 siblings' (which was marked right) and been marked wrong.
Can anyone suggest where I have gone wrong and/or why there is a distinction, please? Thank you.
I think it may have only been marked wrong because you don't need 私の when you say 父 because without the honorifics お さん, it already implies that he is your father. Or it didn't want you to use that kanji yet. I've been marked wrong for using 子供 instead of 子ども
I answered :
私のお母さんは姉妹が十人います
I should not use お母さん? 姉妹 is incorrect in this context?
Thanks for any help :)
お母さん in this context sounds a little bit childish but you can use it, 母 it's the better option. 姉妹 would be only correct if all the siblings are female. 姉妹 just means sisters while 兄弟 can be mixed in gender.
When you say 母は it's implied that is your own mom because you usually don't use honorifics to talk about your family when speaking to other people, while using お母さん sounds awkward because while you are expressing that is indeed your mom you are talking of, this way to refer to your parents is usual between children that grow between parents calling themselves by honorifics, but once the child grows up they just use the non-honorific counterparts unless there are some special circumstances.
The point is to use honorifics with someone else family and humble yours while talking to the listener.
- 201
Yes, 兄弟 (きょうだい) can be used to mean either brothers (all male) or siblings (mixed gender), kind of like ellos in Spanish.
- 847
「お母さんは十人兄弟がいます。」と記載して間違いとなりました。 「お母さんは十人兄弟がいます。」日本語としては成立していますし、「母は兄弟が十人います」と同じ意味ですので正解だと思います。
while is not directly incorrect, the way I see the variations in the kanji for the word きょうだい、as you did, using 姉 + 弟 (older sister + little brother), is usually done to refer to a specific pair, and it's also used in combination with hiragana or furigana. The normal word will almost always be written as きょうだい or 兄弟 for consistency.
Is "兄弟" not "brothers," and "姉妹" not "sisters?" Are both of those not interchangeable for "siblings?"
- 847
I'm a Japanese. We don't say "haha ga 10 nin no kyoudai desu" If we say it, "haha wa(ha) 10 nin kyoudai desu"
- 128
Here's a question that I don't see people discussing, but it is something that has been bothering me about this sentence and others like it.
If one word ends in the moraic nasal ん and the following word begins with a vowel - like in 「十人います」, for example - can this end up being pronounced like 「じゅうににます」, or would that just sound totally wrong to a Japanese person? Do you have to be careful to pronounce it differently?
The subject particle が should go after 兄弟 as the siblings/brothers are what are doing the existing
Counters are adverbs and do not take particles. (Particles are used to indicate the relationship of a word to a verb but adverbs already directly modify the verb)
If you wanted to put the counter before the particle it would also have to go before the thing being counted with the linking particle の to connect them: 十人の兄弟
- 847
「母は兄弟が十人います」is okay. 「母は兄弟十人がいます」is a little strange.
「兄弟」is a noun. However there is no noun for 「兄弟十人」.
My answer 母は姉妹が十人います was marked wrong. That should be accepted, right? Aren't sisters and brothers both sibblings? O.o
- 11
During my practice, I 've noticed "shimai" means sisters and "kyodai" means siblings. There is no specific japanese word for "brothers"?
