I want to say "My wish is to make my family proud". So I started off,… - Feed Post by dokidokki

• 
  mog86uk

  That seems a pretty difficult question. I get the feeling you'd have to use the verb in causative form. But even just trying to find the correct verb is tricky, as there are a lot of words with negative meanings of arrogance, haughtiness or conceitedness.
  
  Maybe it isn't as difficult as I think it is, but I get the feeling I'd get it very wrong if I made any guesses. xD

  April 21, 2015 at 12:01am
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  Arachkid

  I was going to suggest the same - to start with, decide whether you want to say you want to make your family happy, etc. Pride is not regularly referred to in a good way in Japanese. So much so that I actually have had students who I have given lessons to prepare them for interviews in English, as Japanese interviews are filled with "maybe"s and "I think I could possibly" and that obviously doesn't work when you're applying for an American company.

  April 21, 2015 at 8:26am
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  dokidokki

  Oh wow, I hadn't realized how important modesty is in Japanese society...! My question was originally something I wanted to use in my homework, but I feel like I got a valuable culture lesson instead! It's really interesting to hear that something like humbleness would be valued in a competitive work setting. I agree that in a western setting, such a thing would be generally negatively viewed as incapable or indecisive.
  
  As for the sentence, I really wanted to say "I want to make my family happy by meeting/surpassing their expectations," rather than "I want to impress my family by being better than others." I didn't even consider that using "pride" would come off as arrogant... I guess it just goes to show how important cultural connotation has in language learning, I'll keep that in mind for my studies!
  
  Thank you for the responses!

  April 22, 2015 at 3:37am