Timeline for How do you say "some", "many", "a few", and "few" when referring to people?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
13 events
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| Jun 17, 2020 at 8:18 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
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| Sep 7, 2019 at 15:42 | history | edited | Daishi | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
fix typo
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| Jun 5, 2019 at 16:31 | comment | added | Daishi |
You're right about 大事さ, thanks. What would be a more natural way of saying those phrases then?. And also, please feel free to answer the OP.
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| Jun 5, 2019 at 15:48 | comment | added | chocolate♦ | Your last sentence (大勢の損が限られた人数に得した) makes no sense, and your other two examples are not natural, I'm afraid... (健康の大事差 should be a typo for 健康の大事さ , by the way) | |
| May 8, 2019 at 7:18 | comment | added | Ranquil | I see, thank you! :> You can find formatting guides, including a furigana guide, for Japanese Stack Exchange here: japanese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/806/… | |
| May 7, 2019 at 21:41 | comment | added | Daishi | @Ranquil by the way, how do you add the furigana on top of the kanji ? | |
| May 7, 2019 at 21:40 | comment | added | Daishi | @Ranquil Yes, you can use 少数 (しょうすう). Reading your comment I just remembered 多数 (たすう) which is the opposite of 少数 (しょうすう). | |
| May 7, 2019 at 15:26 | comment | added | Ranquil | Ah, I see, thank you! I did some more digging around, and I found 少数【しょうすう】. Do you think that could work for "few", in the sense of "few people"? | |
| May 7, 2019 at 14:55 | comment | added | Daishi |
@Ranquil 若干人 sounds strange. But the other suggestions are fine. 数人 should work for a few. I also realize that some and a few are very close.
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| May 7, 2019 at 14:05 | comment | added | Ranquil | I checked a few of the words you used in your translations and did some digging around. Do you think these could match up to the words I asked about? - some : 何人【なんにん】か - many : 大勢【おおぜい】 - most : ほとんど - few/a few : 若干人【じゃっかんにん】 | |
| May 7, 2019 at 13:28 | comment | added | Daishi |
@Ranquil the word do exist but the idea would be expressed differently. That is why literraly translating usually does not work very well. And for the word ほとんど what you say is perfectly correct.
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| May 7, 2019 at 12:10 | comment | added | Ranquil | Hmm, I see your translations essentially translate around the words "some", "many", "few", "a few", and "the few", and I think the resulting senteces mean mostly the same thing, but not exactly. Do equivalents for these English contructions not exist in Japanese? By the way, I noticed the way you used ほとんど as the theme in 「ほとんどは呆然としていた」. Can one use ほとんど as a noun to mean "most", in the sense of "most people"? | |
| May 6, 2019 at 14:36 | history | answered | Daishi | CC BY-SA 4.0 |