マイケルさん、
Thank you very much for posting your translation!
Yes; I agree with you about omission.
As I wrote in my reply to uknowiknowuknew5566-san, I decided to give "literal" translations
and my Japanese sentences sound quite much "translated", meaning "not natural".
The apple is red ⇒ ringo wa akai desu.
It is John's apple ⇒ Jyon-no ringo desu.
I give John the apple ⇒ ringo-o Jyon-ni agemasu.
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I think those three sound perfect
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He gives it to John ⇒ Jyon-ni ataemasu.
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"ataeru" is indeed a translation for "to give" and seems correct. Please just remember that this "ataeru"
has stronger connotation of "ranks"; in this sentence, "I" person needs to be someone in higher rank than "John" person.
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She gives it to him ⇒ ataemasu.
This is a good example of a sentence that we cannot understand unless we already know what 'she', 'it' and 'him' refers to.
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You're definitely right; I completely agree with you.
In textbooks (of language learning), they always give literal translations because the most important thing is
whether or not the learner actually understood the details. However, in "translation" world, you wouldn't
translate "she", "it" or "him" unless you need to. In Japanese, not using personal pronouns is also a common practice.
Hence, we need to use other words instead of personal pronouns.
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I must give it to him ⇒ agenakute dame.
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Unfortunately, this needs to be changted either to "agenakutewa naranai", "agenakereba naranai", "agenakutewa ikenai"
or "agenakereba ikenai".
These "naranai" and "ikenai" are the correct expressions for obligation.
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I want to give it to her ⇒ agetai.
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Perfect!
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I'm going to know tomorrow ⇒ ashita shiraseraremasu.
I interpreted this sentence to mean "I will be informed tomorrow". I think that you can only know that you will know something in the future if you know that someone is going to tell you about it.
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Grammatically, correct. However, we don't say "shiraserareru" in natural conversation. It's rather "I'll know" or "I'll
find out". Otherwise, "result/information (or whatever this person will know) will come": ashita [kekka/shirase] ga
kimasu. This is a very good example to use if/when we teach the difference of expressions in each language.
This also means that "machine translation" never work perfectly because they cannot consider this kind of
difference regarding "points of views".
In Japanese, we don't care if there's "someone" who'll tell you something; we care "something" will reach "us"
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I have eaten the apple ⇒ ringo-o tabemashita.
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Perfect!
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I can't eat the apple ⇒ watashi-wa ringo-o tabenakute dame.
I interpreted this to mean "I am not allowed to eat the apple". I guess you could even translate the sentence as "watashi-wa ringo-o taberu dekimasen" although it seems very improbable (I cannot eat the apple because I lack the necessary skills).
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Again, unfortunately you need modification. Please remember that we actually don't have expression "[verb]-te dame"
to say "don't/can't [verb]", "must [verb]" etc. When I gave a reply in my previous comment, I also wondered what
(or rather "which") expression I should use. There're some possibilities here. Like you guessed, we can use
"[verb] koto ga dekimasen": watashi wa ringo o taberu koto ga dekimasen.
We can also use potential form of verb "taberu": watashi wa ringo ga taberaremasen.
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So, what do you think? Please let me know how you think about my comments
I think you have a real good point about not translating certain words, and I can assure you that you've got it very
right when it comes to natural Japanese. So, very well done!!
I'd also like to appreciate information sharing
especially about English: using pronouns mean you already know what/who those words refer.
Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com
