Japanese Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the Japanese language. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Im using an Anki deck to study vocabulary. It's translation for the sentence 私が手伝いましょう is "Can I help you?". Im a bit confused, as I see no question marker in that sentence. I would guess it's meaning to be "I (We?) will help you (us?)". I'm a bit confused since the sentence starts with 私が but ends with ましょう。Is this a common phrase or is the translation incorrect? I would appreciate any help in breaking down this sentence.
ありがとう。
As the translation of "Can I help you?", 私が手伝いましょうか? may be more accurate than 私が手伝いましょう but they mean almost the same thing, don't they?
私が～しましょう is used but 私が is often omitted because a subject is often omitted in Japanese language.
In addition, ～しましょう has two meanings: One is "will" like 私が手伝いましょう。 (I will help you). The other is "let's" like みんなで山に登りましょう。 (Let's climb a mountain with everyone).
Well it should really be "lets" or "let me" ,"allow me" when using "ましょう".
As in "let me help you with that "
You could say "Can I help you with that?" , "手伝いましょうか" and not use a question mark as the "か" indicates that it is a question. But it does not always need this to imply a question.
Edit: I would not say the translation is incorrect as it does need some clarification, but i can certainly see how it would be confusing.
