I’m entering a phase where my learning is now focused on Children’s books in Japanese, starting with ももたろう
The second line on the first page is:
おばあちゃんがかわで
おばあちゃん ＝ grandmother
が ＝ subject particle
かわ ＝ river
で ＝ particle for where it took place
The sentence preceding this one is むかしむかしのおはなしです = once upon a time / I’m telling you a tale from a long time ago.
Therefore, it is basically saying “Once upon a time, the grandma went to the river”?
When I put this into deepl I get かわで ＝ the river’s surface, and worse yet, it translates this to “a long time ago, a grandmother is a river”:
むかしむかしのおはなしです
おばあちゃんがかわで
Google translate on the other hand gives me this: “It is a story of once upon a time
grandma is cute”.
I’m quite sure I’m translating it correctly because my limited knowledge of Japanese extends at least this far, but in which case my question becomes, “how can I learn if online translators can’t even get the most basic things even remotely correct?”
I’d like some advice on how to properly learn from children’s books. I have a few Soul Eater manga too but I’m not quite there yet.
5 comments
おばあちゃんがかわで is an incomplete sentence. Are you sure that is the end of the sentence?
Answer to your question: You don’t learn from online translators
It might be because で is also the connective form of です, e.g. Aさんは親切で、頭がいいです。You should give the second part of the sentence for an accurate translation.
I think your sentence is simply missing the part where she does laundry. Are you sure you did not cut off a part or the sentence continues on the next page or something? It should say something like おばあさんがかわで**せんたくをしている** or whatever it was.
Deepl is only in hiragana, or sentences in the middle are tend to be inaccurate.If you write “おばあさんは川に洗濯にいきました” it becomes “Granny went to the river to wash clothes,” which is quite accurate.
By the way, Google translate might be pretty accurate considering Momotaro’s original story lol
Where’s the rest of that sentence?