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I'm trying to practice simple translation from English to Japanese.

I'm around N4 level so I started with something I thought was doable for me:

Today I woke up at 9:00 am. After I got up, I walked Nacho outside so he could poo.

And this was the translation I did:

今日は９時午前に私が起きた。その後、外でナチョと散歩したからうんちする事ができる。

I thought I did it right, but when I checked on Google Translate, this is what came up:

I woke up at 9am today. After that, I took a walk with Nacho outside so I can poop.

What did I do wrong there?

I know Google Translate isn’t super reliable. So I want to check here if I really did miss something in my translation.

Can anyone shed some light? Thanks. :)

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    You should be careful with difference between 'so' meaning 'as a consequence of' and 'so' meaning 'in order to/that'. They are not the same word in Japanese.
    – user3856370
    May 8, 2020 at 19:41

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Let's look at your translation.

今日は９時午前に私が起きた。その後、外でナチョと散歩したからうんちする事ができる。

I find nothing wrong with the first sentence. It may not be the most natural way of saying "I woke up 9 AM." but it does the job. The second sentence, however, needs some fixing. I see your attempt at translating "so" but as user3856370 mentioned, this translates to a different grammar pattern which is not taught until around N3 level but is very useful.

If I were to translate the second sentence, I would write it something like this.

その後、ナチョがうんこできるように、外に連れて行った。

Not the best translation, but I think it gets the message across.

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  • Thanks for the insight! I still get a little confused about when to use から since it can be used in a few different ways. After some googling, it looks like making use of ように makes more sense in this context. I appreciate your answer! Thank you.
    – Maryan
    May 13, 2020 at 4:57

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