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このお酒飲んでみて

この酒を飲んで見て

I’m not sure if the second one is even grammatical. I need some help making out the meaning of the two.

Edit:

I think both sentences mean please drink this sake but they are written differently. I would like a comparison between the two in terms of grammar and semantics.

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    You changed three things (remove お, add を, みて→見て), was there one change in particular you were interested in?
    – Darius Jahandarie
    Commented Apr 22, 2020 at 14:07
  • @DariusJahandarie As I mentioned above, I'm not even sure if those changes were valid. So are you telling me that both sentences are grammatical?
    – user6332430
    Commented Apr 22, 2020 at 14:10
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    if you look at tps://japanese.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic it says, direct translations are off-topic. if you want to know about what でみて means that is easily google-able.
    – Nathan Hughes
    Commented Apr 22, 2020 at 15:24
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    It's better to focus your question on one particular change.
    – user1478
    Commented Apr 22, 2020 at 15:31
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    @Nathan を-omission is totally fine and often preferred in colloquial Japanese.
    – Darius Jahandarie
    Commented Apr 22, 2020 at 17:09

1 Answer 1

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このお酒飲んでみて

First, let's fix one error: このお酒を飲んでみて。 Omitting the を is possible but I don't recommend it. It just doesn't sound good if a foreigner try to speak lazy Japanese.

The お before 酒（さけ）is an honorific prefix like in おなまえ (name). It's a good idea to use that prefix whenever you're talking about items, things or any nouns that belong to others.

Next, 飲んで（のんで)just means drinking. ~て みて is try to do ~. So the sentence means "Try to drink this alcoholic drink." As far as I know the みて is written as Hiragana since 見る carries the meaning to see.

That should answer the question, which mix out of both sentences is needed in order to have a fully correct sentence.

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    を-dropping is extremely common in colloquial Japanese, and I think “lazy” is bit too strong of a value judgment about it. In a casual setting このお酒飲んでみて is totally fine, regardless of if you are native, non-native, foreigner, whatever. In fact I’d say it has a better ring to it than the version with を in that scenario.
    – Darius Jahandarie
    Commented Apr 22, 2020 at 17:08
  • is みて the same as 見て ?
    – user6332430
    Commented Apr 22, 2020 at 17:44
  • In my understanding it depends on the sentence. Sometimes dropping it sound natural sometimes it doesn't. As a foreigner it is difficult to know when and when not to use. That's why I don't recommend it. On the other hand it's also true that the neutral honorific form we're all learning from text books and teachers is rarely used by native speakers.
    – Thomas
    Commented Apr 22, 2020 at 17:47
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    Um, saying “the verb 見る "to see" has nothing to do with the みる "to try"” seems between an overstatement and incorrect? The etymology of 〜てみる is indeed 〜て見る (in the sense of “do X and see (if it goes okay)” → 〜てみる), and in fact, you can still write 〜て見る and be understood, it’s just usually considered poor style to kanjify your auxiliary verbs. (Though some people choose to do so anyways for intentional stylistic reasons occasionally, like making your text look heavier.)
    – Darius Jahandarie
    Commented Apr 22, 2020 at 18:35
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    Also, the difference between お酒 and 酒 is not that お酒 is someone else’s drink (i.e., an honorific usage), but rather お酒 has been lexicalized to mean “an alcoholic drink” and you can (and generally always should) use it to refer to alcoholic drinks, including your own. 酒 is usable for this meaning but it’s a less refined word. “美化語” is the word for this general phenomenon.
    – Darius Jahandarie
    Commented Apr 22, 2020 at 18:40

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