In English, it’s when you use “one” as a pronoun to say something like “one should not drink poison” etc. It generalizes. How would one say or convey this in japanese?
I believe you would drop the subject part of the sentence, and it’d be implied. “Doku wo nomanai hou ga ii desu”
You can use この人（ひと) .
Nothing.
Lucky for you, sentences in japanese doesnt require a subject.
So you can just completely omit it, and the reader/listener will assign a subject to the sentence based on the context.
you use もの
毒を飲むものではない
one should not drink poison. もの is used to give a general rule, without giving a specific person/context
毒を飲むのはダメです。
In Japanese you can construct such free-form sentences where there really isn’t even a subject.
People have already given you good answers — so I won’t bother repeating them — but I just wanted to reinforce that you should try to get out of the habit of thinking of Japanese in terms of English as soon as possible.
Unlike English, Japanese sentences do not require a subject to be grammatically correct, so the equivalent of these “filler pronouns” (think also of sentences like “**It’s** raining”, “**It’s** hot outside”, or “**There’s** no one here”, etc.) will literally not exist in the corresponding Japanese sentences.
There are many, many other cases where a Japanese sentence expressing the same idea as a particular English sentence will do so using completely different phrasing/sentence structure.
This is why when thinking about these things or asking questions, you should be thinking in terms of “How do I express [concept] in Japanese?”, not starting from a hypothetical English sentence and asking “What is the Japanese equivalent of [specific word in the English sentence structure]?”.
Depends on the context, but sometimes you may use 人。Like: 人は他人に悪いことしちゃいけないよ。
You could go around by saying *given thing* + to omoimasu ( と思います ). It’s basically the same thing and saying *one should not do this and this* is basically your opinion anyway.
Alternatively, saying 毒を飲んではいけない(のです)。can work to, although it’s a lot direct and probably not recommended. So adding と思います / と思う at the end instead would be preferable.
自分
There should be a rule against people who can’t speak much japanese yet offering authoritative sounding answers
Just to let you know, the translation will differ on the context of the sentence. I’ll answer lightly to “one.” Not specifically to your question though.
もの and の tend to represent this. For example, 赤の買って。 Buy the red **one**
But it’s not a fool proof case. Sometimes it’s just implied and it’s up to the interpreter / translator to choose which word or set of words represent a close enough meaning to the phrase and cultural context.
If you constantly think about Japanese from your English perspective it’ll slow down your ability to master Japanese. Sometimes things just don’t translate smoothly across cultures or there isn’t a 1:1 way yo represent the same idea in the same context.
~~also that’s an awkward sentence. “One should not drink poison(?)” why? Usually warnings say, “WARNING: Poison. YOU WILL DIE IF YOU DRINK THIS! In that case we wouldn’t even use a pronoun. It would just be “POISON: don’t drink it!”~~
I can concur with that too. I bounced it off friend and she said because you are attaching the word “mono” it becomes general knowledge.
for example 飲めないもの or 飲まないもの something you cant/dont drink (everyone knows that, common knowledge)
良いわないもの(something you don’t say, because its rude etc etc reason, buts its something commonly known that typically should not be said)
unrelated but as a phone reddit user i find it interesting how people give answers with kanji as opposed to using both the kanji & hiragana/katakana counterparts. maybe there’s an easier way to read on here that i’m not aware of but i hadn’t learned the kanji for 毒 (どく) doku does anyone know of a webpage reader to use on reddit/ google? just wondering
13 comments
I believe you would drop the subject part of the sentence, and it’d be implied. “Doku wo nomanai hou ga ii desu”
You can use この人（ひと) .
Nothing.
Lucky for you, sentences in japanese doesnt require a subject.
So you can just completely omit it, and the reader/listener will assign a subject to the sentence based on the context.
you use もの
毒を飲むものではない
one should not drink poison.
もの is used to give a general rule, without giving a specific person/context
毒を飲むのはダメです。
In Japanese you can construct such free-form sentences where there really isn’t even a subject.
People have already given you good answers — so I won’t bother repeating them — but I just wanted to reinforce that you should try to get out of the habit of thinking of Japanese in terms of English as soon as possible.
Unlike English, Japanese sentences do not require a subject to be grammatically correct, so the equivalent of these “filler pronouns” (think also of sentences like “**It’s** raining”, “**It’s** hot outside”, or “**There’s** no one here”, etc.) will literally not exist in the corresponding Japanese sentences.
There are many, many other cases where a Japanese sentence expressing the same idea as a particular English sentence will do so using completely different phrasing/sentence structure.
This is why when thinking about these things or asking questions, you should be thinking in terms of “How do I express [concept] in Japanese?”, not starting from a hypothetical English sentence and asking “What is the Japanese equivalent of [specific word in the English sentence structure]?”.
Depends on the context, but sometimes you may use 人。Like:
人は他人に悪いことしちゃいけないよ。
You could go around by saying *given thing* + to omoimasu ( と思います ). It’s basically the same thing and saying *one should not do this and this* is basically your opinion anyway.
Alternatively, saying 毒を飲んではいけない(のです)。can work to, although it’s a lot direct and probably not recommended. So adding と思います / と思う at the end instead would be preferable.
自分
There should be a rule against people who can’t speak much japanese yet offering authoritative sounding answers
Just to let you know, the translation will differ on the context of the sentence. I’ll answer lightly to “one.” Not specifically to your question though.
もの and の tend to represent this.
For example, 赤の買って。
Buy the red **one**
But it’s not a fool proof case. Sometimes it’s just implied and it’s up to the interpreter / translator to choose which word or set of words represent a close enough meaning to the phrase and cultural context.
If you constantly think about Japanese from your English perspective it’ll slow down your ability to master Japanese. Sometimes things just don’t translate smoothly across cultures or there isn’t a 1:1 way yo represent the same idea in the same context.
~~also that’s an awkward sentence. “One should not drink poison(?)” why? Usually warnings say, “WARNING: Poison. YOU WILL DIE IF YOU DRINK THIS! In that case we wouldn’t even use a pronoun. It would just be “POISON: don’t drink it!”~~
I can concur with that too. I bounced it off friend and she said because you are attaching the word “mono” it becomes general knowledge.
for example 飲めないもの or 飲まないもの something you cant/dont drink (everyone knows that, common knowledge)
良いわないもの(something you don’t say, because its rude etc etc reason, buts its something commonly known that typically should not be said)
unrelated but as a phone reddit user i find it interesting how people give answers with kanji as opposed to using both the kanji & hiragana/katakana counterparts. maybe there’s an easier way to read on here that i’m not aware of but i hadn’t learned the kanji for 毒 (どく) doku
does anyone know of a webpage reader to use on reddit/ google? just wondering