something about something

[danfernold7261]

Konnichiwa.

I was thinking that I would like to ask more using japanese in here, and by thinking this I stumbled upon how to say "something" about "something" i.e. "a book about cars" a question about japanese"

Now, I looked it up with Google translate, and it said "kuruma ni tsuite no hon" and "nihongo ni tsuite no shitsumon" for the examples, and my question having seen this is: Is A ni tsuite no B" the right pattern for these kind of things?

Yoroshiku

Dan Fernold

[mmmason8967]

Is A ni tsuite no B" the right pattern for these kind of things?

Yes, I think so. Although you don't need the no if 'B' is a verb, as in "write about something" or "talk about something".

マイケル

[danfernold7261]

I checked with G.T and according to it,.no must be present even then.

Dan Fernold

P.S. Although G.T. isn't always right in my experience D.S.

[mmmason8967]

I trust Google Translate about as far as I can comfortably toss a Volkswagen. I really lost faith the day it offered me "The theory of tea packets" as the opening words of one particular translation. And then, against all expectation, it actually managed to go downhill and ended up suggesting "plop plop plop" a bit later on in the same sentence. Even with my rudimentary grasp of Japanese, I sensed something was amiss.

I think Google Translate is wrong. As a counter argument, how about this Japanese National Tax Agency page? The heading has について followed immediately by the verb 調べる and no の. It says 税について調べる, which I think means "checking your taxes".

マイケル

[amylian2084252]

マイケル

[japanese.innovative]

Dan Fernold san
マイケルsan

こんにちは。いい質問ですね！！Ii shitsumon desu ne!

As マイケル san said, when B is a verb, you have to omit の.
税について調べる。 Zei(tax) ni tsuite shiraberu(to check). You can't say 税についての調べる。
A verb never comes after の, but a noun can.
So you can say 税についての本を買った。 Zei ni tsuite no hon o katta. (I bought a book about tax.)
In this case, Dan san's pattern works!

Nanatsu 菜々津
TeamJapanesePod101.com