Hello,

I often find myself in situations in which people say something to me and even though I 'understand' what they are saying I don't know how to reply properly. I will describe a few situations. Please help me translate it to plain Japanese (I think I can figure out the polite forms myself).

At the store / super / conbini.
You want me to heat that up for you?
= Yes, please. / No, thanks.
= Can I have a bag please? / One bag please.

Other sentences
1. How do you call "this" (in Japanese)?
2. What can I do with this?
3. How do you use this?
4. Can I do this?
5. Which one do you think is best?
6. Whatever you want or whichever is fine.
7. The other one. / It's another.
8. Can I have 20 of this delivered to my house every week?

That last one would be particularly helpful.

Onegai shimasu m(_._)m

--

Yes, please. / No, thanks.
はい、お願いします。／ううん、大丈夫です。or 結構です。

1. How do you call "this" (in Japanese)?
これは日本語で何といいますか？
2. What can I do with this?
これで何をできますか？
3. How do you use this?
し方は何ですか？(I'm sure there's a better way to say this)
4. Can I do this?
＿＿＿＿＿+verb+てもいいですか？
5. Which one do you think is best?
おすすめは？
6. Whatever you want or whichever is fine.
どちでもいいと思います。
7. The other one. / It's another.
あ、あの、他のは・・・
8. Can I have 20 of this delivered to my house every week?
毎週２０つを家に配達してもらえますか？

i'm sure i'm wrong on some of them though. i have no confidence anymore.

The following are my modifications to make them plain sentences, please correct me if I am wrong.

1. How do you call "this" (in Japanese)?
これは日本語で何といいますか？
これは日本語で何と言うの？

2. What can I do with this?
これで何をできますか？
これで何をできる？

3. How do you use this?
し方は何ですか？
し方は何？

4. Can I do this?
＿＿＿＿＿+verb+てもいいですか？
＿＿＿＿＿+verb+てもいい？

5. Which one do you think is best?
おすすめは？

6. Whatever you want or whichever is fine.
どちでもいいと思う。

7. The other one. / It's another.
あ、あの、他のは・・・

8. Can I have 20 of this delivered to my house every week?
毎週２０つを家に配達してもらえますか？
毎週２０つを家に配達してもらえるの？

One more thing, what's the reading for 20つ?

Thanks!

kainzero Wrote:Yes, please. / No, thanks.
はい、お願いします。／ううん、大丈夫です。or 結構です。

Hmm, somehow I always associated 結構 with a real physical thing (being refused) like food sample or serving, can it also be used freely in situations with services being offered?

thurd Wrote:

kainzero Wrote:Yes, please. / No, thanks.
はい、お願いします。／ううん、大丈夫です。or 結構です。

Hmm, somehow I always associated 結構 with a real physical thing (being refused) like food sample or serving, can it also be used freely in situations with services being offered?

well, whenever i used it at 7-11 the guy always replied
「あ、大丈夫です、はい。」 so i never really knew

Yeah, you can. To be 100% sure, I just watched through an old comedy clip I have on my computer--an actor is reading through a script that he's gonna have to act, and most of the jokes are about the script being ridiculous.

The first part of the script he goes to a combini, and the joke is that the script includes waaaay too much everyday combini conversation.
Part of it goes:
店員Ａ：いらっしゃいませ。お弁当温めますか？
Ｇｕｙ：いえ、結構です。

(If anyone can find this clip online streaming somewhere that would be awesome. It's called 「高校教師」の台本 and the comedian is 陣内智則, but the Youtube video has been taken down and now I don't see it anywhere.)

Annnnyway, a couple of notes on what's been said.
これで何をできますか？ should definitely be 「これで何ができますか？」 just for pure grammatical reasons. Though, I'm skeptical about if it sounds natural. What about これはどう使えますか？ 使う is used with greater variety than 'use' in English.

The bag thing wasn't answered. Bags are usually counted with まい (after all, they're flat when they're packaged). So it should be 袋を一枚お願いします。

20つ is also incorrect--should just be ２０, read as にじゅう. つ isn't generally used on anything higher than 九つ.

You might be better off asking this stuff at Lang-8? Native Japanese people would answer there...

Anyway, i'll just add in a few things...

= Can I have a bag please? / One bag please.
袋ください・袋一つください　(not sure what the couter is for bags, sorry)

Other sentences
1. How do you call "this" (in Japanese)?
As Kainzero said. If you can't be bothered with that whole sentence, probably これは何ですか？ would get you the right answer.
2. What can I do with this?
(i would probably use どう使うのか？ for both 2 + 3, but if you use Kainzero's, it should be これで何ができますか？)
3. How do you use this?
どう使うのか？
4. Can I do this?
As Kainzero said.
5. Which one do you think is best?
どっちがいいと思うの？
6. Whatever you want or whichever is fine.
構わないよ
7. The other one. / It's another.
いや、最初の・他の・違うの（ください）
8. Can I have 20 of this delivered to my house every week?
As Kainzero said

A lot of these need more context because they require idiomatic phrases that don't translate well. You need to be especially careful with "can" because in English we use it to express both permission and ability, and it sometimes has other meanings too.

kainzero Wrote:2. What can I do with this?
これで何をできますか？

This one needs more context -- what kind of situation are you wanting to say this in? As a native English speaker I can't think of many situations in which I would ask this question.

Quote:3. How do you use this?
し方は何ですか？(I'm sure there's a better way to say this)

どうやって使いますか。 or just どう使いますか。

Quote:4. Can I do this?
＿＿＿＿＿+verb+てもいいですか？

This is fine if it means "Is it OK for me to do this?"

Quote:5. Which one do you think is best?
おすすめは？

This works in some cases, not in others.

Quote:7. The other one. / It's another.
あ、あの、他のは・・・

I'm not sure what the context for this is, but the Japanese here doesn't really work.

Quote:8. Can I have 20 of this delivered to my house every week?
毎週２０つを家に配達してもらえますか？

This is also going to depend on what this is and who you're asking.

Won't add much just that 'Can I have ...' is usually said ...もらっていいですか or ...もらえますか and is very handy. So, 'can I have a bag?' would be 袋一枚もらっていいですか/もらえますか .

And also, 'No thanks' is usually いいです。Though 結構です would also work. I don't think that 大丈夫です would be clear in this situation but maybe.

IceCream Wrote:1. How do you call "this" (in Japanese)?
As Kainzero said. If you can't be bothered with that whole sentence, probably これは何ですか？ would get you the right answer.

You have to be careful with this. The average Japanese person isn't going to know that you're asking the Japanese name if you say this. They are going to think you don't know what you are looking at which can be very confusing if you're looking at something really obvious like milk or bread or something like that. I have had more than one experience where a friend or I have pointed at a kanji in a menu that we couldn't read and asked これは何ですか？ And the waiter had no idea how to answer the question because, of course, we're probably the first and only customers he's had that has ever asked him how to read a kanji so it just never occurs to him that that is what we are asking So, I definitely think you need to make it clear what you are asking.

ahaha ok, i'll remember that in future!! thanks!!

Also, i think my answer to no.7 is also wrong...

7 is impossible to say without more context since the phrase is so vague -- it sounds like the OP is thinking of some specific context but I don't know what it is.

turvy Wrote:1. How do you call "this" (in Japanese)?

Alot of people have been saying
～何と言うの？

Which made me realize that I think I've been saying it wrong for awhile XD.
I use 何っていうか？ while pointing at something or talking about something, to ask "what do you call this" and no one has ever corrected me on it.

Putting か after a plain form is not wrong, but it's very blunt. It sounds sort of like "What the hell is this?" in English.

yudantaiteki Wrote:Putting か after a plain form is not wrong, but it's very blunt. It sounds sort of like "What the hell is this?" in English.

Interesting, never knew that. I just always thought の was fairly soft and feminine in use there for not something males would use much.

vix86 Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:Putting か after a plain form is not wrong, but it's very blunt. It sounds sort of like "What the hell is this?" in English.

Interesting, never knew that. I just always thought の was fairly soft and feminine in use there for not something males would use much.

の at the end of a question isn't feminine. It's only feminine if you are making a statement, and that's because you're dropping the だ (んだー＞の).

か in a plain form question kinda demands a yes/no answer (often with the implication that the speaker thinks the answer should be "no", ie a rhetorical question, but not always). Eg. ”これでいいのか？！” Avoid it unless you know what you're doing.

zigmonty Wrote:の at the end of a question isn't feminine. It's only feminine if you are making a statement, and that's because you're dropping the だ (んだー＞の).

You're still dropping the だ in the question too. It can definitely sound girlie if you're not careful. It also depends where you are. 東京弁 in general sounds pretty weak to people from other prefectures, so using 「の?」 in 大阪 wouldn't be a great idea.

Sorry about the no-context question, I really don't remember why I typed that one, it just popped from my head.

@yudantaiteki your comment about how the Japanese would sound like in English was amazing. If you could compile a tutorial or a list with examples and explain their nuances like this it would be 100 times more useful to learners than anything I've read that attempts to explain stuff like how 'yo' makes your sentence more assertive or what not.

Thanks to everyone for their kind replies. Should I post here any other sentences I would like to translate in the future or should I look elsewhere? Like some poster said, in Lang-8, I haven't tried that out, but it sounds like a smart idea.

What about:

1) It's another one.
2) Other things.
3) What's the difference?
4) It's similar.
5) It's different.
6) Maybe after the movie ok?. (多分、映画後でね？)

As I said several times in the thread, you need to provide context for these. Some of the answers you got to your first group of questions still aren't complete or correct because you still haven't provided context.

zigmonty Wrote:の at the end of a question isn't feminine. It's only feminine if you are making a statement, and that's because you're dropping the だ (んだー＞の).

か in a plain form question kinda demands a yes/no answer (often with the implication that the speaker thinks the answer should be "no", ie a rhetorical question, but not always). Eg. ”これでいいのか？！” Avoid it unless you know what you're doing.

Thanks for the clarification.

Out of curiosity, does the use of の vs か apply in written Japanese as well, or is it a colloquial spoken thing?

Javizy Wrote:You're still dropping the だ in the question too. It can definitely sound girlie if you're not careful. It also depends where you are. 東京弁 in general sounds pretty weak to people from other prefectures, so using 「の?」 in 大阪 wouldn't be a great idea.

I don't think this is true actually... I live in Kansai and guys end questions with の all the time--even guys that talk with that silly trying-a-bit-too-hard-to-be-manly deep voice.

Not to mention, everything I've read/everybody I've asked has said that の after a question is not girly.

vix86 Wrote:

zigmonty Wrote:の at the end of a question isn't feminine. It's only feminine if you are making a statement, and that's because you're dropping the だ (んだー＞の).

か in a plain form question kinda demands a yes/no answer (often with the implication that the speaker thinks the answer should be "no", ie a rhetorical question, but not always). Eg. ”これでいいのか？！” Avoid it unless you know what you're doing.

Thanks for the clarification.

Out of curiosity, does the use of の vs か apply in written Japanese as well, or is it a colloquial spoken thing?

Well, it depends on what's being written and the level of formality. One thing you've gotta watch is that just because serious writing often uses plain form sentences rather than ます／です, that doesn't mean it uses conversational speech patterns. Formal written japanese is a different style again. である being used rather than だ for example. Another is that some て forms tend to transform into ます-stems. Imperative forms are perfectly acceptable (and せよ is used a lot rather than しろ). This is especially the case in something like a spec where you're telling someone what they have to do when implementing something. Ending a sentence with verb+こと as a softer imperative is also common. I forget what it's called, but it's extremely common in technical writing to skip the する at the end of sentences all together. For example ”下記条件により制御ロジックを実行。” If you said that in a conversation, people would look at you pretty weird.

I have never seen a sentence final の in a technical document, either as a question or a statement. Questions usually end in a か (although they're not common in the stuff i read as asking a question of the reader is fairly pointless). Words like なぜ are used exclusively over words like どうして or なんで. Eg, after stating a physical law, it might say "それはなぜか？” and then go on to explain it.

Anyway, it depends heavily on what's being written. Newspapers are different again. Business emails are different again. And ギャルメール (or whatever it's called, the way かわいい girls write text messages)... well... yeah... that's certainly different.

Academic writing also does not use の？ questions; that's a speech form. Most of the questions in the academic writing I read are rhetorical or the like, and they end with か.