I was watching some Japanese videos, and they were asking Japanese people a question and they answered with “ありです” the subtitles on the video says that it means “yes”
But when I put it into google translate it said it means “there is”
I understand that google translate can be innacurate so I looked up what it means in a dictionary, and it showed that it means “thank you/graditude”
I then went to HiNative and saw a post that asked what it means
some of the answers were “possible” “thankyou” “it’s good” “sounds like fun”
I couldnt find any source that said it means “yes” even though that’s what the Japanese people in the video said.
idk I’m just a bit confused lol .-.
6 comments
If it’s the context of making plans or considering buying something, it means “can I join because it sounds fun”, “this is a possibility because we all like the idea”, “this is definitely one of the candidate products I’m considering” and so on.
Most things become clear when you pay attention to the speaker. Who they are, who they’re talking to, who they are to people they’re talking to in what situation for what purposes are what matters in a conversation because people talk to communicate, not to determine the exact meaning of each word they use.
What I’ve seen so far is that in Japanese it’s normal to questions with the same verb that was used to ask.
So if someone says “Does a dog exist?” it’s perfectly fine to say “Exists” as a response. Or “Should we swim?” and answer “Swim!”. But the more natural translation to English is “Yes”.
あり is a very potent verb with a lot of meanings, which is why you’ll see lots of differing translations, because it comes down to the context of how it’s being used.
The ‘yes’ is most likely a localisation, not a direct translation. Basically they said something that doesn’t translate to ‘yes’ but but in English we would say ‘yes’ in that situation.
あり is often a shortening of ありえる ‘to be possible/likely’ so ありです could be translated to ‘it’s a possibility.’
あり here is just an adjectival noun that means something like “acceptable” “allowable” “passable”. The reason it is translated to “yes” is because the speaker was asked whether something would be okay / acceptable, and they are replying “It would be acceptable (ありです)”, which was translated to “Yes” because they are merely giving an affirmative answer to what was asked
Google translate is not going to give you an accurate translation here because it looks too similar to あります which means “there is”.
ありis the opposite of なし. It means “It’s acceptable.”
As you may know, ます is attached to verbs, and です is attached to adjectives and nouns. So if ある is a verb, it should be あります, instead of ありです. In other words, あり in ありです is nominalized.
Some verbs can be simply translated.
>始めます = (I) do 始める. = I start.
>
>始めです = (It) is 始め. = It is the start.
>
>負けます = (I) do 負ける = I lose.
>
>負けです = (It) is 負け = It is a loss.
But some of them have special/specific meanings. They tend to be considered casual/slangy expressions.
>あります = (It) does ある. = It exists.
>
>ありです = (It) is あり. = It is acceptable. (*1)
>
>買います = (I) do 買う. = I buy (it).
>
>買いです = (It) is 買い. = It is a must-buy.
>
>推します = (I) do 推す. = I recommend (it).
>
>推しです = (It) is 推し. = It is (my) fave. (*2)
*1 It sounds slangy so it tends to be translated into more casual expressions. “Sounds good”, “That’s an option”, etc.
*2 Maybe it seems you can just say it’s “do recommend” vs “is recommendation”, but “推し” is considered as an otaku-term and mainly used for idols/characters. (It’s becoming common though.) The common word for “recommendation” is おすすめ, いちおし, etc.