I just started learning japanese and I’m trying to put together basic sentences. I tried to write “I’m not japanese”. When I typed it into google translate to check if I’m correct it said what I typed means I’m not japanese. This worked with these two sentences:
わたしはいいえにほんごです
わたしはいいえにほんご
But when I put the。mark at the etd of my sentences the translation changed to I don’t speak japanese. So these somehow mean different things?
わたしはいいえにほんごです。
わたしはいいえにほんご。
The grammar is probably way off bc I put these together based on anime and duolingo.
7 comments
日本語 (にほんご) means Japanese the language, I think you’re looking for 日本人 (にほんじん) which means Japanese the nationality. If you want to say I don’t speak Japanese you could say 日本語を話せない and if you want to say I’m not Japanese you could say 日本人ではない。
Neither of the two is correct Japanese. They both say “I am ‘no (as in yes/no)’ Japanese language”.
Japanese as in Japanese citizen is 日本人 (にほんじん).
Google translate is mostly miss in the hit or miss scale because japanese grammar structure is different from english. The です should be in its negative form rather than adding いいえ before にほんご. Also, にほんご is japanese the language not japanese [person]. The sentence I believe you are looking for is
わたしはにほんじんではありません。
Watashi wa nihonjin dewa arimasen
(Regarding myself) watashi wa
(Japanese [person]) nihonjin
([I] am not) dewa arimasen
Also be aware that the ‘wa’s in the above are spelled ‘ha.’
I am a beginner, so if someone else comments, feel free to take their word over mine.
Keep in mind Google Translate is not a learning tool. It is trying to guess what you meant, but it is not going to tell you whether the sentence you entered is correct/proper Japanese.
To echo other comments, Google Translate is not a tool you should be using to learn Japanese. Check this sub for much better free resources, and best of luck!
As someone else mentioned, Google Translate will do its best to guess the meaning of what you wrote, even if the grammar is wrong. You could type in “Me is no Japanese”, and would probably translate it into a correct sentence. So the best use of translation apps is to input in English, and then to compare the translation to what you wrote. And bear in mind that even this method is far from being completely reliable.
Also I highly recommend using DeepL over Google Translate. It’s much better overall.
…You literally just translated words one to one and stuck them together with spit and duct tape, didn’t you?
This isn’t the army, that shit doesn’t fly here.
Get a textbook, learn basic grammar. Starting with point one; though this is frequently misunderstood by people who have never learnt another language, languages are not just English with funny words and an occasional different order. Especially between English and Japanese, there is a significant difference with how the language is structured at a fundamental level.