Translation doubts (が, き...) [closed]

Question

I'm trying to translate some Japanese text I found to English (I'm very beginner, and self-learning). There are two columns of Japanese; on the left:

私

い

日

本

が

and on the right:

大

子

き

で

す

I divided these columns into blocks, as follow:

私い = I (with Hiragana い used to strengthen the "I")

日本 = Japan

が = and

大 = large

子 = child

き = ki

です = copula ("is")

So, I'd translate it something like "I'm Japanese, and a large child is the ki", but I'm not sure this is the correct translation. For example, what does き "ki" exactly mean? Does it mean spiritual energy? And, if so, why it is not written this way 気 ?

And is it correct to consider が as "and"? I found on an online dictionary that が can indicate sentence subject (so would Japan be the subject in this case? If so, how to reconstruct the phrase?)

Answer 1

As the commenters above have mentioned, the sentence is likely

私は日本が大好きです (Watashi wa Nihon ga dai-suki desu)

If this is indeed what it was, 好き ("suki") means "to like" (very loosely). The kanji 好 means "good", "likeable", etc., and the accompanying き is okurigana for the whole word すき. I won't go into the details of okurigana here since that link explains it pretty well.

In Japanese, to say "like X", the pattern is Xが好き. In this case, the が is a subject marker. Often, が indicates a specific thing/example; what I like to refer to as a "specifier". So in the pattern Xが好き, "X" is the thing specified as being liked.

As for 大好き ("dai-suki"), as you noted, the kanji 大 means "large"/"big"/"great". So 大好き means to really like/love (not romantic love) something a lot.

So broken down, the sentence is

私は (As for me) 日本 (Japan) が (is what) 大好き (I really like)です。　→　"I really like Japan!" or "I love Japan!"

Hope this helps!