Hello all,
I’m a beginner learning Japanese on Duolingo. Recently there was been a content update on Duolingo which has made me wonder what is stated explicitly and what is just presumed based on context.
Originally, the early courses of Duolingo would teach that statements like:
学校です = I’m a student
*Name*です = My name is *name*
This and the introduction Japanese course I did at uni seem to imply that we assume the speaker is talking about themselves even without saying ‘私は…’
In the recent Duolingo update, statements like below have been translated to presume the speaker is referring to a he or a she:
いしゃです = She’s a doctor.
先生です= He’s a teacher.
I would think that noun + です doesn’t actually tell us what/who the subject is, and this translation is misleading. Would it not be more accurate to say:
かのじよはいしゃです
彼は先生です
I might be overthinking, the whole thing may just be a way to make it easier for beginners. It’s just been irking me, and was hoping someone here could clear it up for me.
14 comments
Don’t trust duolingo
Those sentences given don’t specify gender. That’s just duolingo giving you a little extra .
Most of Japanese is contextual. It’s grammatically correct even if the subject and object is omitted. Technically you just need a verb to have a grammatically correct sentence.
The translations aren’t literal but they are correct based on the context.
There’s a lot of context needed in Japanese. The Japanese drop the subject when they think it’s obvious.
Duolingo is a terrible resource for Asian Languages. Look at the beginners guide on here for much better resources.
Japanese is very contextual, but there are sometimes subtle hints too.
In one of your examples, “先生です”, you can be reasonably confident that the speaker is referring to someone else. Because “sensei” is a honourific term, and thus would be less likely to be used for oneself. If you were talking about yourself and wanted to say “I am a classroom teacher” then “教師です” (kyoushi desu) might be more appropriate.
Japanese is a high context language. So you can often drop all particles, say half a sentence and drop the subject.
It’s 学生
Don’t use language learning apps
学校です is “it is a school.”
Think of は as changing what you want to talk about. Suppose you’re showing someone a picture of your family.
これは兄です。兄の名前はサムです。医者です。これは姉です。マリアです。まだ学生です。This is my big brother. “His name is Sam. He’s a doctor. This is my older sister. Her name is Maria. She’s still a student.”
90% is contextual. It’s not hard to understand once you get it, though. Nothing to be worried about, but is a thing that you’ll only get as you put a lot of output to work (which means talking. Okay, also writing, but mostly, talking).
The deal is that, in a casual conversation, you’re going to omit A LOT of stuff. Let me give you and example:
あなた(は)日本語(が)上手だね
(Anata (ha) nihongo (ga) jouzu da ne – Oh, you’re good at Japanese)
まだまだだよ。(日本語が上手に)なりたいね…
(Mada mada da yo, (nihongo ga jouzu ni) naritai – not yet for real. I want to become good at Japanese)
ううん、(あなたが)上手だよ！(あなたの日本語の会話は)とても良い。
(Uun, (anata ga) jouzu da yo! (Anata no nihongo no kaiwa ha) totemo ii – nope, you’re really good at it! Your Japanese language conversation is really good).
This was an (weird) actual conversation that I had not so long ago. In the very beginning I would get extremely confused, and of course, I would, but nowadays I’m pretty fine with it. You’ll get the grip of it as you advance in your Japanese studies.
Also, please be aware that the grammar that I wrote up there, although isn’t wrong at all, isn’t that used. What is in between the parenthesis is actually what I omitted, but still I could put way more stuff if I want, like one これについては, which means “about this”. This is the beauty of the Japanese language, it’s pretty much straight to the point, no one likes to keep extending it too much lol. But although it may seems really hard to get, with some practice in no time you’ll be speaking almost like a native, you’re gonna be the かっこいい外国人。lmao
Btw, if I can give you a tip, it follows: although documental Japanese isn’t that much important if you don’t truly want to get a job or study here, use duolingo only to help you building a base. Buy some Minna No Nihongo books, at least the first two, and try to output the most you can everything you read there. After a while, you’ll get a grip on it, and then you’ll stop worrying that much about context and will have a better path to follow on your study! 頑張って！
Q.How much of Japanese is contextual?
A.Yes.
When Duolingo asks you to translate 先生です for example, you can type I am a teacher, He is a teacher, or She is a teacher. Duolingo will accept them all as correct.
It’s contextual. And making it easier for beginners by adding the topics like that just teaches bad habits because that’s not how it’s going to be used in real life.
The fact that you “incorrectly” guessed if it meant he/she/they/cat/whatever from Duolingo’s incomplete sentence is more about the failure in the app to provide the context than your inability to understand the language. As you go you’ll get used to it.
Imagine the following English sentence:
“Teacher”. And it comes with the translation “He is a teacher”. The missing context being someone has just asked you “What’s that guy’s occupation?” and pointed to a man. You wouldn’t respond “That guy over there’s job is being a teacher”. You would just say “It’s teacher” and let the existing context make that sentence meaningful as part of the overall conversation.
Not much more than English actually, in fact, in many cases less, the trick is to realize that Japanese has no concept of persons like English does. Words such as “私” or “僕” do not have the same strict “I” meaning in Japanese as they do in Japanese. One can consider Japanese a language where everything is third person.
In that sense, so-called “pro dropping” is no really no different than using a pronoun, the difference being that English unambiguously differentiates between different persons in it’s pronouns, and Japanese does not, and in the right context “僕は何してるの？” can also mean “What are you doing?” not just “What am I doing?”
In that sense, it’s no different than using “he” in English. What it refers to is often entirely clear from context but in theory it could refer to many persons. A gap in the sentence in Japanese can be seen as a pronoun.
In fact, in Japanese, one will far more often use names or titles where “he” would be used in English and using a name would sound unnatural. It’s very common in Japanse to repeat names in sentences where doing so would sound very unnatural in English and a pronoun would be used instead.