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I'm trying to translate the English sentence below into Japanese:

Each theory has a different understanding of how countries like China, Japan and South Korea behave towards each other.

My best translation:

互いの理論はなぜのような国中国や、日本や、韓国を始め、互いに振る舞ることが分かることの違っています。

What I'm having the most trouble with is how to order the verbs in the sentence as I'm pretty sure what I've written at the end there is ungrammatical. Perhaps I should treat that phrase 'different understanding' as a noun in Japanese? I'm also not so sure about my use of ような and を始め in the same sentence as well, as there seems to be some crossover there.

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  • For reference, before anybody downvotes, this is not google or bing translate, I checked.
    – blutorange
    Mar 12, 2015 at 20:17

2 Answers 2

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"Each theory has a different understanding of how countries like China, Japan and South Korea behave towards each other."

「[互]{たが}いの[理論]{りろん}はなぜのような[国]{くに}[中国]{ちゅうごく}や、[日本]{にほん}や、[韓国]{かんこく}を[始]{はじ}め、[互]{たが}いに[振]{ふ}る[舞]{ま}ることが[分]{わ}かることの[違]{ちが}っています。」

Vocabulary & Collocation:

1) How many theories are there in total? 「互いの理論」 would generally refer to "two theories" -- one of Person A and the other of Person B. If more than two, I would use 「[各]{かく}理論」 or 「それぞれの理論」.

2) We do not say 「なぜのような」 to mean anything; It is just not a good collocation. Besides, why use 「なぜ」 when there is no "why" in the original in the first place? The expression you need to use would be 「どのように」、「どう」, etc. as those are what "how" means.

3) If you used the structure 「~~や~~をはじめ」, it would need to be immediately followed by a noun phrase such as 「[多]{おお}くの[国々]{くにぐに} = "many countries"」. Because there is no such phrase in the original to begin with, you could not use 「~~をはじめ」 in your translation.

4) 「分かることの違っています」 makes little sense. I can easily tell you tried hard, though.

5) 振る舞 > 振る舞

" Perhaps I should treat that phrase 'different understanding' as a noun in Japanese?"

Exactly. It is a noun phrase in English as well.

My own TL attempt:

「それぞれの理論は、中国、日本、そして韓国といった国々がお互いに対してどのように振舞っているかについて、[異]{こと}なった[見解]{けんかい}を[示]{しめ}しています。」

I used the vocabulary and grammar you used as much as possible. Towards the end, I chose the words that you did not, but that is only because those would sound more natural to native speakers.

「異なった」= different,「見解」= view,「示す」= to show

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I have to say your composition has many grammatical/vocabulary flaws and hardly makes sense, but I would try to show you some hints here:

  • のような国 has to come after 中国や、日本や、韓国
  • "has a different understanding" → 異なる理解を持っています. Simple literal translation suits here.
  • "how" → どのように, not なぜ (why). Plus, a か after the verb (振る舞う) has to come with it.
  • The "of" in the middle would best be について just in this case.
  • "towards each other" → 互いに対して
  • "each theory" → それぞれの理論. Note: "each other" = 互いに but "each" = それぞれの.
  • 振る舞る must be a typo of 振る舞う.
  • And yes, を始め is redundant and unnecessary here.

Now could you try it again by yourself?

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