Knights Who Don't Say "Ni"
Oct. 11th, 2018 07:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Though I'm now relatively confident about writing emails in simple Japanese, I still like to paste the final result into Google translate, imperfect as it is, lest I've made some awful faux pas. There was a time at the beginning when I would write "henshi arigatou gozaimasu" (変死ありがとうございます)rather than "henji arigatou gozaimasu" (返事ありがとうございます), thus inadvertently thanking my correspondent for an unnatural death rather than their reply. It scarred me.
I haven't done anything quite that egregious for a while, but today I wanted to say that someone had been "helpful throughout". I decided that "zutto yaku ni tatsu deshita" (ずっと役に立つでした) might be the way to go. (I don't think it probably is - "yaku ni tatsu" means something more like "useful", which isn't the vibe I'm after.) However, I forgot the "ni", and ended up with "zutto yaku tatsu deshita" (ずっと役辰でした), which Google assures me means "It was a long-awaited dragon".
I don't quite know how Google came up with that, but it charms me, and makes me wish that I had occasion to write emails where that was the intended meaning.
I haven't done anything quite that egregious for a while, but today I wanted to say that someone had been "helpful throughout". I decided that "zutto yaku ni tatsu deshita" (ずっと役に立つでした) might be the way to go. (I don't think it probably is - "yaku ni tatsu" means something more like "useful", which isn't the vibe I'm after.) However, I forgot the "ni", and ended up with "zutto yaku tatsu deshita" (ずっと役辰でした), which Google assures me means "It was a long-awaited dragon".
I don't quite know how Google came up with that, but it charms me, and makes me wish that I had occasion to write emails where that was the intended meaning.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-11 11:17 am (UTC)That is very charming. If not an e-mail, then a story or poem?
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Date: 2018-10-11 01:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-11 11:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-11 01:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-11 12:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-11 01:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-11 05:37 pm (UTC)