4 ms·
It's not just lexicon, but sometimes also syntax which doesn't translate cleanly. Japanese has a really interesting piece of syntax in the ditransitive adversa
by beefsack 6y ago
It's not just lexicon, but sometimes also syntax which doesn't translate cleanly.
Japanese has a really interesting piece of syntax in the ditransitive adversative passive, which is similar to the English passive construction but with a second object which can be used to denote that someone was adversely impacted by it.
There is an example on Wikipedia[1], it's definitely a difficult thing for native English speakers to get used to.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_voice#Adversative_passive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_voice#Adversative_pass...
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y agoCan you give an example? Google is drawing a blank for that. My favorite piece of Japanese syntax is that adjectives can be conjugated for tense and conditionals, meaning that "It was delicious" has to be expressed as "It is delicioused" (oishikatta desu) and you can say "if it had not been red" with a single word (akakunakattara).
- beefsack 6y agoI found an example, which I've added to the parent post.