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"role of marriage in a Japanese woman's life"

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judita
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Joined: November 19th, 2007 4:26 am

"role of marriage in a Japanese woman's life"

Postby judita » May 1st, 2009 6:33 pm

Hello :)

I'm trying to make a presentation for my Japanese class and I'm struggling to find the best way to say the opening line :)

My presentation is basically about marriage tendencies in Japan: as in, the low average age of first marriage, the kursimasu keki and etc.

So, here's my opening line:

これから____について発表したいと思います。

The _______ should be "role of marriage in a Japanese woman's life". How could I say it in a rather formal, smart sounding way?

Thanks!

Belton
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Posts: 752
Joined: June 16th, 2006 11:39 am

Postby Belton » May 2nd, 2009 10:04 am

I don't really vouch for this much, but it's an interesting puzzle.
That's quite a number of modifiers in that clause.

So my attempt would be
日本人女性の生活の中で結婚の役割

However.
Will your audience understand complex sentences? Your teacher might but your classmates won't.
Especially in an oral presentation, they have to get the meaning on the fly.
Keep it simple. Avoid the dictionary. Speak the presentation, don't read it.

My 2円

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judita
New in Town
Posts: 2
Joined: November 19th, 2007 4:26 am

Postby judita » May 2nd, 2009 10:10 am

Thanks for this!

Actually, it's a presentation I'm making for the teachers, kind of like an oral exam. I won't be able to read it even if I wanted to :(
They're Japanese, so the more complicated my Japanese sounds the better :) Thanks for the suggestion, I was kind of stuck on that first line...

Javizy
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Joined: February 10th, 2007 2:41 pm

Postby Javizy » May 2nd, 2009 1:37 pm

To express 'the role that X plays in Y', you say「XがYに果たす役割」, so I guess your sentence could be:

結婚が日本の女性生活に果たす役割

If you want to sound even more formal you can change に to において and I'm pretty sure you can remove the の, but don't quote me on that. By the way, I'd really recommend the Alc dictionary for stuff like this. You can type phrases in, such as "the role of" and get natural Japanese approximations (if you're lucky). On the rare occasions I do an English-Japanese look up, I always use this dictionary.

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