Word-for-word and literal translations (Japanese)

Official Memrise Courses Japanese
1

Hello there!

I’m currently using your course for Japanese.

Let me first praise the recent revamp of the course. This new version is vastly better and much more intuitive and progressive than the last version. So major kudos to the team for that!

I enjoy the philosophy and linguistic aspects of learning a language (perhaps even more than the experience of improving my language skills), which is why I’m particularly fascinated by Japanese, because it’s so vastly different from any western language I’ve encountered.

This is why I was completely dumbfounded in the best possible way when I came across this sentence because it is so inherently Japanese: “猫カフェに行くのが好きです” (Japanese 1, Level 4: “To each their own”)

The english translation is: “I like going to cat cafés”

The word-for-word translation (Currently literal translation) is: “cat-café-to go-く-の-が like is”

My suggestion is that the actual “literal translation”, if I understand correctly, be listed as “The going to of cat-cafés is liked (by me)”

That way the learner can view the sentence both laterally and try to understand the closest parallel in English (literally, as it were).

I understand the implications in making such an overhaul and the fact that it may confuse some learners more than it may help them, but the sentence made much more sense to me (and I was able to appreciate it much more) and therefore stuck much better in my brain once I understood the ins and outs of the sentence.

I don’t necessarily think this would be a good idea for every course, but I imagine it would be immensely helpful with languages that are so vastly different in structure from English.

I hope this made some sense. Otherwise I’d be happy to elaborate.

It is of course also entirely possible that I’m just plain wrong, in which I’d be happy to know :slight_smile:

Thanks so much!

Kind Regards,
MariusHD

3 Likes
2

Hey MariusHD! Welcome to the Memrise community :slight_smile:

What you have noticed is that the grammatical structure of Japanese is often the inverse of English. I like to joke about it being structured similar to Yoda’s speech from Star Wars! There is a peculiar concept to note - In Japanese you can not cut off the speaker, because all of the important information comes at the end of the sentence. In this light, you can think of the Japanese language having politeness “baked in”. I’d like to elaborate on the sentence in question with the hopes that it provides you some insight related to how Memrise provides ‘literal’ translations.

  • 猫 (Cat)
  • カフェ (Cafe)
  • 猫カフェ (Cat Cafe)
  • 行く (To Go [Verb])
  • Location + に行く (Go To Location [Verb])
  • 好き (To Like)
  • 好きです (‘Likes’ or ‘Does Like’)
  • Noun + のが好きです (‘Likes Noun’ or ‘Does Like Noun’)
  • 猫カフェに行くのが好きです (Cat Cafe + Go To Location [Verb] + Does Like)

Notice how in English we say ‘Does Like + Go To Location [Verb] + Likes Noun’. This is a complete inversion! Hopefully this information sheds some light on the following translation: ‘at-café-to go-く-の-が like is’.

3

Thank you so much for that very detailed response!

However, if I may, I think you just proved my point exactly.

Part of my suggestion was the implementation of another line of explanation namely one outlining the word-for-word translation (like the one already provided).

Right now the “literal translation” is a word-for-word explanation while an actual coherent literal explanation is lacking.

Like I described in my original post, this would provide the learner with the option to view the sentence word for word “cat-café-to go-く-の-が like is” next to the actual literal translation “The going to of cat-cafés is liked (by me)”. This would allow the learner to understand the individual parts of the sentence and also understand the whole thing improving the chance of retention.

Did clear things up?

1 Like
4

Yes I think that is a good way to explain it. I agree, this would be a really good idea. It could be an optional thing where the author of a course can fill it out with whatever they think is best - but not be forced to fill it out at all either.

Alternatively, you can create a Mem of your translation so that you will see it every time you practice this word. Plus, other users can use it as well.