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- "Yes, I am busy on weekdays."
"Yes, I am busy on weekdays."
Translation:はい、平日は忙しいです。
12 Comments
why is there a は in front of 平日？I thought that I was the topic of the sentence?
I assume he didn't mean "in front of", but "after", as this makes more sense.
The topic in this case is not "I/私", it's only the subject. You can roughly translate it like this:
Speaking of weekdays, I am busy (then).
The red part is the topic, as this is what you're supposed to talk about if you answer a question like "Are you busy on the weekdays?". Depending on the context, this could maybe be omitted, but as we can't see the question, it is kind of essential. And we're here to learn sentence structure as well, so it's better this way.
The blue part is the subject. If I am the one who's busy, then 私 is the subject. This is most likely to be omitted, as it is obvious for Japanese people that you're talking about yourself if you don't include a subject. This has been said in this forum many times before, I know... but I just don't want to omit important stuff. ;)
は is pronounced "ha" unless its used as a topic marker, where it's prounounced "wa". In this case it's part of the word "はい" or "hai" which is a rather formal way of saying yes.
は is first part of yes (as in はい) then its used as in wa topic marking particle (as for weekdays) - busy it is or i am. That is my understanding So you are correct about it being the topic but not exclusive or first use in this case.
no, i believe this is incorrect because に is only used for /specified/ places and times. so you would use に if you said you had to be somewhere at exactly nine o'clock or if you said that you were at a specified location like ”i am at the convenience store.”-> "コンビニにいます”
平日・へいじつ・ Weekdays (ordinary + day) monday - friday
週末・しゅうまつ・Weekends (week + end) saturday + sunday
If I were to include "I am" in the translation, would it be 「はい、平日は僕が忙しいです」?
