I am helping my japanese student with their english work. They wrote the following sentence:
ジャニーズカウントダウンを見ながら年越しを楽しみます
they translated this as:
I enjoy New Year’s Eve while watching Johnny’s Countdown.
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I’m having trouble correcting their translation because the translation is correct but it sounds wrong in English. I can’t tell if they’re saying that watching it is what makes New Year’s Eve fun or it’s a part of the fun of New Year’s Eve.
I would appreciate your input
4 comments
To me it just seems like two loosely related things – I’m having a good time on New Year’s Eve as we watch the countdown. Replace カウントダウン with 音楽を聴きながら or something and it still works. It’s just something that’s going on while you’re having a good time, so I think the translation is more or less fine. Biggest change I’d do is more like “we watched Johnny’s Countdown and enjoyed New Year’s Eve”
Your translation is perfectly fine.
The main clause is the second one, and the ながらclause is subordinate.
土曜日、歌を歌いながらドライブに行った。I sang songs while driving on Saturday.
The input is that it’s ambiguous in English but not in Japanese.
English in many cases does not disambiguate between clauses that modify a verb and a noun, as such “I am calling the cat behind the house.” is ambiguous and it’s not clear whether “behind the house” modifies “the cat” or “calling”, it can be disambiguated with something such as “I am calling the cat who is behind the house.” or “I am calling the cat, doing so behind the house.”
In Japanese, one would use “家の後ろの猫を呼び出す” or “家の後ろで猫を呼び出す” for either sense, as “〜の” is used to modify a noun, and “〜で” a verb in this case.
Similarly, one can use “見ながら” to modify the verb, but “見ながらの” to modify the noun.
In this case “ジャニーズカウントダウンを見ながらの年越し” means “new years eve while watching *Johnny’s Countdown*” as a noun modified by that clause thus one can enjoy that entire thing.
Without “の”, one simply enjoys new years eve, while watching *Johnny’s Coutndown*.
All languages have *completely arbitrary* patterns that show up more often than the other options. “Natural” just means “following the language fads of the people I’m trying to communicate with.”
I *suspect* that “while” is used more often when you’re talking about a concrete, single event. So, like, “the ships arrived while the harbor was still open” is better than “cars that arrive while the light is red have to wait” – I’d probably say “when.” Is this strict enough to teach as a *rule?* Probably not.
The original sentence can easily be a statement about the future or in general, and for whatever arbitrary reason it sounds better without “while.” Just a participial phrase: “I’ll enjoy NYE watching Johnny’s Countdown.” Or “I enjoy” or “I usually enjoy.”
Anyway, to maybe answer your question, Xしながら seems to put new-information emphasis on X, similar to Xしたら and unlike Xすれば。At least, that’s what my gut sense says about this sentence. It kinda sucks that English doesn’t have that kind of signalling – there’s one of the reasons why translation isn’t reliable.