Is 有する exclusive to physical things? I’ve usually been corrected to ある if I use it otherwise but I’m curious what the actual rules are. Like I can’t say 私たちが晴れを有した, right? (“We had nice weather”)
有する means ‘to possess’, basically, and even ‘have’ in this sentence in English is pretty idiomatic and 晴れを持ってました or 晴れがありました sounds weird.
‘We (as opposed to you) had clear weather’: こっちは晴れだった
The short answer is that “私たちが晴れを有した” indeed does not work. Natives could correct me if it’s even possible to make sense or not sound odd (perhaps in a metaphorical context?) but I’m pretty sure it can’t.
Learning new vocab by looking it up in an EN-JP dictionary is always a fatal mistake (in the sense that you’ll always be using the wrong words, not in that it’ll kill you…) Perhaps you learned this by seeing it somewhere, but if you did, you neglected to bring along the context clues from where you learned it and apply them (see what I mean below).
You could get away with this with fewer problems in many European languages, but Japanese is so drastically different from English in almost every way that it’s best to have a policy to only ever learn words in context. You can still look up words for concrete objects, but things like this are a non-starter.
Maybe that makes sense and this isn’t needed, but in case you want a very illustrative example, I’ve picked a random paragraph I found that uses this word, and I’ll translate it for you:
English: > The ring around Mariella’s middle finger glowed, and the magical circle erupted in flames, a pillar of fire so great one would have to crane their neck to see its top. It gave off a powerful light, with vivid yellow and red-tinged flames at its margins and a monochromatic, dazzling amalgam of white lights at its center. There was no mistaking the extent of terrifying energy inside. **What incredible temperatures might it possess?**
Now imagine being an English learner and seeing this word “possess”. You could look up what it means in the dictionary and figure out it is equivalent to “have”. So, would it make sense to be able to say “I possess three hours to get my homework done today”?
Clearly not, but we can guess that it doesn’t make sense by examining the tone and contents of the context in which we found it. This is a sort of formal, fantasy-like writing, using rarer vocabulary and phrases like “dazzling amalgam”. And yet, if you looked up a phrase like that in a reference guide, you may not have the context to tell that this is the sort of atmosphere where this word might be found.
If you feel like that’s not such a great practice because you’re not at a level where you could read that paragraph in Japanese to get a sense of what it feels like when you use 有する, then that’s merely a sign that you’re not at a level where you should be looking up random words in the dictionary and trying to use them. Understanding grammar better, building more basic vocab from beginner’s materials, and slowly ramping up what you read in Japanese will get you to a level where you can make determinations like this. If you *are* at a level where you can read the above in Japanese, make sure you’re taking all the context of words into account to give you a better hint when to use them. You need to be a mimic of existing Japanese to produce correct Japanese.
2 comments
有する means ‘to possess’, basically, and even ‘have’ in this sentence in English is pretty idiomatic and 晴れを持ってました or 晴れがありました sounds weird.
‘We (as opposed to you) had clear weather’: こっちは晴れだった
The short answer is that “私たちが晴れを有した” indeed does not work. Natives could correct me if it’s even possible to make sense or not sound odd (perhaps in a metaphorical context?) but I’m pretty sure it can’t.
Learning new vocab by looking it up in an EN-JP dictionary is always a fatal mistake (in the sense that you’ll always be using the wrong words, not in that it’ll kill you…) Perhaps you learned this by seeing it somewhere, but if you did, you neglected to bring along the context clues from where you learned it and apply them (see what I mean below).
You could get away with this with fewer problems in many European languages, but Japanese is so drastically different from English in almost every way that it’s best to have a policy to only ever learn words in context. You can still look up words for concrete objects, but things like this are a non-starter.
Maybe that makes sense and this isn’t needed, but in case you want a very illustrative example, I’ve picked a random paragraph I found that uses this word, and I’ll translate it for you:
> マリエラの中指にはめた指輪がきらめいて、魔法陣が燃え上がる。 大きく、大きく、見上げるほどの火柱はとても強い光を放っていて、外周は黄色や赤のよく見る炎の色彩をしているのに中央はただ白くまばゆい光が凝集している。そこに恐ろしいほどのエネルギーが集まっているに違いない。**一体どれほどの温度を有しているのだろうか。**
English:
> The ring around Mariella’s middle finger glowed, and the magical circle erupted in flames, a pillar of fire so great one would have to crane their neck to see its top. It gave off a powerful light, with vivid yellow and red-tinged flames at its margins and a monochromatic, dazzling amalgam of white lights at its center. There was no mistaking the extent of terrifying energy inside. **What incredible temperatures might it possess?**
Now imagine being an English learner and seeing this word “possess”. You could look up what it means in the dictionary and figure out it is equivalent to “have”. So, would it make sense to be able to say “I possess three hours to get my homework done today”?
Clearly not, but we can guess that it doesn’t make sense by examining the tone and contents of the context in which we found it. This is a sort of formal, fantasy-like writing, using rarer vocabulary and phrases like “dazzling amalgam”. And yet, if you looked up a phrase like that in a reference guide, you may not have the context to tell that this is the sort of atmosphere where this word might be found.
If you feel like that’s not such a great practice because you’re not at a level where you could read that paragraph in Japanese to get a sense of what it feels like when you use 有する, then that’s merely a sign that you’re not at a level where you should be looking up random words in the dictionary and trying to use them. Understanding grammar better, building more basic vocab from beginner’s materials, and slowly ramping up what you read in Japanese will get you to a level where you can make determinations like this. If you *are* at a level where you can read the above in Japanese, make sure you’re taking all the context of words into account to give you a better hint when to use them. You need to be a mimic of existing Japanese to produce correct Japanese.