I need help translating this sentence: ”鈴木さんはいつまで家にいますか。” I can't figure out if it… - Feed Post by zikex
I need help translating this sentence: ”鈴木さんはいつまで家にいますか。”
I can't figure out if it translates into "Suzuki-san is at home until when?" or something else entirely. I would appreciate it if both the English and Japanese context is given.
I can't figure out if it translates into "Suzuki-san is at home until when?" or something else entirely. I would appreciate it if both the English and Japanese context is given.
posted by zikex
Comments 14
I think it translates to "Until when Suzuki san is at home"
I thought the original translation was perfect. It's definitely supposed to be a question.
"Suzuki is at home until when?"
"Until when is Suzuki at home?"
"When is Suzuki at home until?"
I think maybe the third one is the more common word order in English, although I'm not actually sure. I think learning Japanese has messed up my natural sense of English word order, or maybe because so many foreigners come to England speaking English in word orders similar to their native language. However, the meaning seems obvious enough. What kind of context are you looking for?
I guess maybe "what time" is more normal than "when", but I can't even tell this for sure either. :D
"Suzuki is at home until what time?"
"Until what time is Suzuki at home?"
"What time is Suzuki at home until?"- Wait, isn't いつまで often used to mean "forever"? Now I'm not so sure. ^^;
- Oh wait, come to think of it, that would probably be いつまでも...
- いつまでも is forever
- Yeah, I was just thinking I'd often heard it used in songs as meaning forever, and for a second forgot that it always had the も particle on the end... ^^;
The part that threw me of was いますか which is literally translated as there is/are and I had trouble trying to put it into context. So what does it exactly do for this sentence? In other words, its purpose.- off*
- います would be translated as "is" in that sentence. Without います there would be no "is" in your English sentence either, so it's pretty important. :P
鈴木さんは "Suzuki-san" [topic]
いつまで "until when"
家にいます "is at home"
か "?"
Breaking down 家にいます, I guess you could say:
います = "is"
に = "at"
家 = "home"
いる (います) is the "be" existance verb used for people and animals. So can be translated: be, is, am, are, (was, were, ...) - I see. I thought that います was only translated as "there is" and did not know that it also just means "is". Thanks for the help.
You're thinking of "Xがいます", which means "There is X" (X must be a person or animal; otherwise it would be あります instead).
This is "にいます", which means "is (exists) in/at " (again, it has to be describing a person or animal.
The two can of course be combined:
がにいます -- "There is/are in/at "
Note that in your sentence, the particle following 鈴木さん is は, not が.- Thanks for clearing that up.
- What I posted got messed up because I used angle brackets around the words "animal" and "place", and they weren't displayed (must be a property of the language being used to implement this forum. I'll use capital letters instead:
PLACEにいます = is (exists) in/at PLACE
ANIMAL(S)がＰＬＡＣＥにいます = There is/are ANIMAL(S) in at PLACE
i can't find...
