Errors?

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1

Hello,

I’m learning japanese with memrise and it is nice thank you :slight_smile:️

By the way, I found strange translations and I was wondering if they are really right :
Watashi wa … naku te wa ike masen is translated “je dois” (I must) but I thought “masen” was a negation (right?). Shouldn’t it be “I must not” (je ne dois pas) ?

Other words seem to be wrong :
Ichiba is displayed as shijo (market or Marché in french) but pronouced ichiba
The number 0 is displayed rei but is pronouced zero, is it normal ?
Some sentences are translated “you are…” but the names Riho san or Suzuki san are in the translations…

Thank you

2

about that ‘masen’: japanese sometimes uses a double negative to end up with a positive out of politeness
that can be the reason

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Well in this case, in Japanese you can’t say “I must”, you have to say “I mustn’t not”. Nakute first negative, masen second negative. Negative x negative = positive.

4

The number 0 is displayed rei but is pronouced zero, is it normal ?

Many kanji can be pronounced in different ways in different situations. Those pronouncations are called “readings”. There are two major groups of readings called “on’yomi” and “kun’yomi”.

The background is that for a long time, Japanese didn’t have a writing system. Japanese could be spoken, but not written down. Chinese, on the other hand, already had a writing system. At some point in time, Chinese scholars traveled to Japan and brought their writing system with them.

Now, the Japanese scholars were confronted with a problem. The Japanese and the Chinese language were quite different. Should they read the new, Chinese characters as they were pronounced in Chinese, or should they read the characters like the meaning in Japanese was pronounced?

To illustrate the dilemma, let’s imagine French had no writing system. Then, somebody from England came over the channel and introduced the French to that newfangled thing called “writing”. Let’s say, in English, the symbol 木 stood for “tree”. So, how should the French pronounce 木? Should they say “tree”, because that’s how the symbol is pronounced, regardless of the meaning? Or should they say “arbre”, because that’s what they are calling that wooden thing with leafs in their language?

The ever polite Japanese basically did both :wink:

So, many of the Japanese characters adapted from Chinese characters (that is, the kanji) have multiple readings. The kun’yomi are readings that descend from the Japanese pronounciations, the on’yomi are readings that descend from the Chinese pronounciations. And because things aren’t complex enough yet, many kanji have multiple kun’yomi and/or multiple on’yomi :wink:

As a rule of thumb, when the whole word is made up from one kanji (and no kana), it mostly uses a kun’yomi. For example, if you use the kanji representing the concept of “tree”, 木, to write the word “tree”, you read 木 as き, “ki”. If you use the kanji 木 in a word made up from multiple kanji like 木曜日 (Thursday), you read 木 as もく, “moku”.

To get back to your question, the concept of zero is represented by the kanji 零. One of the kun’yomi of this kanji is ぜろ, “zero”. One of the on’yomi of the kanji is れい, “rei”.

As a side note, it’s common to write kun’yomi in hiragana and on’yomi in kataka. In this post, I only used hiragana so things wouldn’t get too confusing :wink:

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Ichiba is displayed as shijo (market or Marché in french) but pronouced ichiba

In this case, we’re talking about two different kinds of “markets”. 市場 can refer to the market in the town square where you buy your vegetables. In that case, it’s read いちば, “ichiba”. But 市場 can also refer to “market” as a concept, like it’s used in economical sciences. In that case, it’s read しじょう, “shijō”.

6

Thanks a lot for the explanations.

I have still a lot to learn :wink:

7

Some sentences are translated “you are…” but the names Riho san or Suzuki san are in the translations…

In Japanese, it’s considered to be quite casual, even chummy, to refer to somebody with あなた, “you”. In most cases you use somebody’s name, title or function for that.

Let’s say you want to ask your coworker, Mr. Suzuki, whether he’s tired. In English, you’d just use “you”, “Are you tired?”. In Japanese, you’d probably use his name: 鈴木さんは疲れていますか？, which means something like “As far as Mr. Suzuki is concerned, is he tired?” - even if you’re talking to Mr. Suzuki himself.

It’s also common to use somebody’s title or function. You might address your teacher in school as 先生さん (“Mr. Teacher” or “Ms. Teacher”), your manager at work as 社長さん (“Mr. Manager”) and so forth.

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For the “you” part, I understand but, when using memrise, it is quite annoying that the application asks to translate “you are a genious” but the user has to answer “Suzuki san is a genious” :neutral_face: The application should ask to translate at least with a hint like “while talking to M. Suzuki”

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Verb + Nakute wa ikemasen is the Japanese way of saying that you can’t not do it - or to put another way, “it would be bad if you don’t verb”.
So yes , masen is negation, but nakute wa ikemasen is a set phrase meaning “must” sort of like adding “doit” in French