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- "このラーメンはとてもおいしいです。"
"このラーメンはとてもおいしいです。"
Translation:This ramen is very tasty.
88 Comments
"Very delicious" is not a thing I can imagine a native speaker of English saying. "Delicious" already seems like a good word for emphasis, encompassing both とてもand おいしい。s So, I agree that "very good" seems better.
1418
Agreed. Certain words, such as 'delicious' (for most English speakers), 'wonderful,' 'marvelous,' 'fantastic,' 'splendid,' 'magnificent,' etc. already contain a kind of internal superlative degree semantic component. This is what makes it quite strange to say things like 'very delicious,' 'pretty delicious' (elsewhere in this lesson or unit), or 'very marvelous.' It is, however, possible to use such modifiers as 'truly,' 'really,' or 'absolutely,' which affirm the internal superlative, rather than try to assign, a different, conflicting degree. The word 'tasty,' unlike 'delicious,' but like 'おいしい,' does allow degree modification. So acceptable alternatives might be 'really delicious' or 'very tasty.'
The principle actually has broader application in putting constraints on various other combinations of degree modifications. We can't, for example, say 'very quite tasty' or 'quite very tasty.'
Japanese also has words that are already semantically superlative, such as すごい and すばらしい. If I am not mistaken, Japanese speakers would likewise find it strange to say とても before either.
Of note, in many of the words here a fitting modifier would be 'quite.' This is probably more common in British English, though that might be a stereotype on my part.
"Quite delicious" still sounds wrong, though.
- 1180
As a native English speaker, "very delicious" does not sound strange or incorrect to me, but I wouldn't consider it a common phrasing, either. In any case, "very good" sounds like a good translation to me.
'Very delicious' is very wrong! Something is either delicious or it's not. It would be like saying someone's very dead.
Coincidently "very dead" does gets used from time to time and in the correct context will emphasize the point.
the English phrase "awww man, you're so dead" is not referring to literal mortality.
We say things like "my mom is going to kill me" meaning "my mom will be angry"
this turns into "i'm so dead..." meaning "i will be in trouble"
these are very different phrasal meanings, so "very dead" and "so dead" are quite different in actuality.
"Very delicious" may not be common but it does get used from time to time to emphasize a person's opinion on a food (usually to encourage or compliment the chef, or to convince someone else to try the food). For example, if my brother is hesitant to try sweet potato rice my mother might say, "It is very delicious! You need to try it!" Or if my sister asks how her custards turned out, my family might give her a thumbs up and say, "Very delicious!"
Even if the adjective used is already the strongest or most final it can be (e.g. delicious or dead), "very" can be added as a bit of colloquial English to add even more emphasis. "It is very delicious. / He is very dead." It is to make a concrete statement so that there is no doubt in anyone's mind that what was said is true.
- 389
Yes but that is not what's happening in the Japanese sentence. This is a very common mistake made by Japanese speakers in English that I've noticed for years, along with "very terrible".
Much better is "very" with a less absolute word than "delicious". "Very tasty" for example is much closer to the Japanese sentiment.
I think I have heard "very delicious," if rarely, and "really delicious" more frequently, but the latter does have a very slightly different connotation.
Something is also either fake or real but Trump once said "very fake news". He doesn't speak English very correct though.
Well, to be way more charitable than that phrase deserves, you can imagine "very fake news" to contain even less truth than just "fake news".
Even people who aren't Trump often use seemingly binary concepts like "fake" hyperbolically and then have to spice it up when they encounter something even more fake.
- 389
Ah yes just like a very fake $100 bill contains fewer dollars than a fake $100 bill (-:
Yea as a natuve English speaker, very delicious is used pretty often in my experience, its not unheard of at all, its just an emphasis on it like saying something is big or very big
People combine words like this all the time in English. Totally awesome. Extremely delicious. Very impressive. Completely amazing Etc... I dont see it as wrong to use very delicious.
Everybody's over here arguing and here I am shocked that Ramen is a loanword. Totally thought it was native.
Shocked as well. Googled and it's apparently a loanword for the Chinese dish lamian. Image search shows a close enough looking noodle dish. TIL.
- 389
At least 60% of Japanese words are loanwords from Chinese. But this one is pretty recent so is written in katakana unlike the ancient loanwords.
- 1418
You are quite right that a large percentage of words in virtually any modern Japanese corpus (= usage sample) are Sino-Japanese words based on Chinese characters as roots. I just wanted to add that that doesn't necessarily mean they are all loan words from China. In the West we in the modern era have coined and continue to coin many words which, though based on Latin and Greek roots, were unknown to the Romans and Greeks. Similarly, many Chinese character compounds have been coined in the modern era, but not always in China. Japan embarked on a broader program of modernization and learning about Western concepts earlier than China or Korea, so in fact, many modern Sino-Japanese words were coined in Japan, some of them as calques (translation loans) of Western terms.
'Ramen,' however, according to the English Wikipedia, 'is a Japanese adaptation of Chinese wheat noodles' and 'was first introduced to Japan by Chinese immigrants in the late 19th or early 20th century.' The word ramen is a Japanese version of the Chinese term lamian (拉麵).
- 389
Indeed. Many of these terms invented in Japanese from Chinese roots were then borrowed into Chinese and Korean.
I'm sure there must also be some of the same sort that were created in Korea and then borrowed into Japanese and Chinese. Possibly a couple from Vietnamese too.
There seems to be some dispute over the origin of ramen if you investigate beyond just Wikipedia. But the lamian theory seems solid to me. I've eaten plenty of ramen in Japan and lamian in China, and they're no longer very similar at all. Chinese lamian are still literally "pulled noodles" and mostly served at Hui muslim restaurants so usually beef. Also in China lamian is used with the same characters to refer to Japanese ramen, but in that case they seem to call it "riben lamian".
In English, "ramen" also means "instant noodles", but this is not the case in either Japan or China.
An example:
系統 (keitou/xìtong3): "system". This compound was created in Japan and later brought to China, and is the current word in Modern Chinese for "system". 安卓系统 (ànzhuōxìtong3) means "Android system". 系统版本 (xìtong3bánben3) means "system version".
- 152
Shocked as well. Googled and it's apparently a loanword for the Chinese dish lamian. Image search shows a close enough looking noodle dish. TIL.
I'm sorry, but Chinese claims everything is theirs. Recently, they claimed Kimchee was their invention. Big fat lie, if you ask me.
Get the facts staright. Ramen is curly fried noodle. Chinese NEVER had such a noodle before Japanese introduced it. Even Koreans, who makes better ramen now, did not invent ramen.
- 914
Same here but, when I thought about it again, I realized that there are chinese lamian and korean ramyeon.
- 152
Everybody's over here arguing and here I am shocked that Ramen is a loanword. Totally thought it was native.
Big friggin' deal. Men, the suffix from Ra-men, is from 麵 (traditional) or 面 (simplified) and it just means "noodle".
I think this should be "really delicious" because "very delicious" sounds very grammatically incorrect.
Can somebody explain why "this ramen tastes very good" is not accepted as a valid answer?
We're using "very good" tho, not just good.
I thought it would take "tastes very good" since it should be the same at "very delicious", especially since it made me use "tastes good" on multiple occasions as well.
I think it's because while they both mean the same, the sentence structure is different. The original sentence is describing the state of ramen. It's like "he runs fast" vs. "he is fast." They are structurally different.
I like とても because it sounds a bit like totally and means kind of the same thing. Compare that to things things in Japanese that don't sound like what they mean: ginger (神社), shin bone (新聞), shoe shine (出身), my shoe (毎週), and don't touch my moustache (どういたしまして).
- 389
Except that "totemo" is a very un-slang word for "very" while "totally" is very slang (-: There's a bunch of slang Japanese words for very, some of them are regional. "Chou" and "Mecha" are the two I can remember.
- 393
Yet, if you type "This ramen is totally delicious" (as I did), you will be marked wrong. :'(
I think there should be more options for answers since english speakers sayibg "really delicious" and "yum" as well. Delicious seems formal.
I think "yum" would be going a bit too much to the colloquial side though.
- 46
-とても = very -ほんとう = really though as in 'for sure/actually' so duo probably wants to make sure there is a distinction
very tasty is also accepted and seems more natural sounding to me. I agree that "very delicious" feels off even if native speakers use it sometimes.
- 1000
The correct answer for the word bank version is "this ramen is really delicious", but that answer is wrong here?
Why is ramen written in katakana? Is it not something coming from Japan, and should therefore have it's "own" word or something?
- 389
Interestingly, modern ramen and modern lamian are not really that similar. In China, Japanese style ramen in a restaurant is actually called "riben lamian", literally "Japanese ramen". Instant ramen on the other hand is never called "lamian" but "fangbian mian", literally "convenient noodles".
Am I the only one who feels a little icky about the "this ramen" instead of "these ramen"? Or is it supposed to be "this" because it's one bowl of ramen..?
- 1409
I think "these ramen" sounds extremely weird. Seems like it would be a bit like having a bowl of spaghetti and saying "these spaghetti are very delicious" (as if talking about the individual strands rather than the whole mass of spaghetti you are eating).
Well, I guess it's a cultural thing because in French we eat "these spaghetti". We don't consider it as a whole mass. Same thing with hair, one common mistake for French learning English is saying hairs when talking about hair. In French we say "les cheveux» (plural of hair) .
- 389
It's not cultural, it's linguistic. In Italian and French "spaghetti" is plural while in English it's neither singular nor plural but what's called a "mass noun". Just like "advice" and "evidence" it doesn't have a plural.
Aye, what we wouldn't have given for bowls back in the ramen mines. Of course, we weren't allowed them, nor even water, lest we try to smelt the ore and eat it.
- 389
It is. Most of the Italian words for types of pasta, other than the word "pasta" itself, are plurals.
- 1202
Ramen is what the dish is called (in English at least) as well as a name for noodles. So, 'this ramen' is correct, because we're talking about the dish as a whole.
U are pointing to your friend about this particular flavor of ramen is delicious - on the menu, or you have started eating your ramen and decide to share with your friends with u that it's delicious
So, for Duo, the curry is tasty and the ramen delicious. But none of them are good :/
Literal translations are often wrong when you try to apply English grammar and often appear wrong if you can't think of an immediate application for Duo's, sometimes awkward, sentences. In this particular example, you could substitute "very" for "quite" and the sentence would appear more normal and have a similar implied meaning. More than that though, given it's another language you should try to realise that the Japanese word is synonymous and not an exact translation and hence おいしい is not just "delicious" but the meaning and emotional attachment that the English word has.
Aside from my ramblings though, always report it if you think your answer was correct, Duolingo is not all encompassing but they do read the reports and add them to exercises on their merits. They do not however, always read these comments as they are for us to help each other learn.
I think おいしい can be translated as "tasty", as well. So, in this case, "very tasty" (とてもおいしい) seems legit to me.
Typing the word 'ramen' gets the red underline treatment (as you can see here) for misspelling, but there is no correct spelling given
Very tasty, yes. Very delicious, no. It's like saying "it's very freezing in here!" - just sounds strange. However, I have heard a lot of people from East Asia using "very delicious", to the point where it started to sound OK to me...
- 379
I definitely read somewhere that "Totemo" is used very rarely and in special circumstances.
A lot of people would use めちゃくちゃ and めちゃめちゃ instead of とても because it is a VERY formal way of amplifying an adjective.
In Chinese they have a similar saying: "很好吃/真好吃" meaning "very good to to eat" a.k.a. "very delicious". Which explains why Chinese speakers love adding "very" before adjectives.
How are we suppose to know when it is singular or plural? Im french ramen is plurial. Both should be accepted. Same goes for delicious or tasty :should be both accepted since they are synonyms and the same word is used in japenese (おいしい) if otherwise please explain I would like to understand merci
- 244
Is "This ramen is absolutely delicious" a viable translation? Because it considered my translation as false.
This ramen are very delicious. should be accepted as a solution. I feel duoling really has a problem with the t translations in later japanese level. It's too strict in accepting translation. Please fix.
You would need to use "This ramen is" or "These ramen are" as otherwise your plural/singular isn't consistent.
