This is discussion I thought would be really interesting. There are a number of grammar points that are much easier in one language over the other, and I wanted to use this thread to point some of them out. I’ll go first.
Counting: Much easier in English for obvious reasons.
Hypotheticals: Easier in English. Japanese has like 6 versions of if (と, えば, たら, etc.) and they all get condensed to just “if” in English, which is easier I think.
ほど/degree: Much easier in Japanese, the amount of uses for ほど is crazy, and English doesn’t even have a word for it. You can say “as much as” with just one word in Japanese, and it also functions as English’s “less/fewer/
Plural: Easier in Japanese. The plural in English isn’t particularly hard, but hardly making anything plural is even easier I suppose
Let me know if there’s anything you’ve stumbled upon that’s much easier for you in one language!
2 comments
Japanese:
Person A: Hey, eat?
Person B: Eat.
Try saying that in English and expect people to look at you funny.
I disagree with the counting point. In English you can’t really say, “this recipe calls for 2 lettuce and 4 garlic.” It’s 2 heads of lettuce and 4 cloves of garlic. “I bought 2 cigarettes and 1 beer” has a totally different meaning than, “I bought 2 packs of cigarettes and 1 case of beer.”