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I'm currently studying the Shinkanzen Master N3 Grammar and during one of the exercise, I got an answer wrong which isn't such a big deal by itself, but unless I'm translating the phrase incorrectly.... I'm pretty sure I should have been right ?

The Shinkanzen indicates that "ところだ／です" is used to talk about "just before X happens" while "ところを" is used to talk about "while X is happening"

Now the exercise I got wrong was :

今、出かける準備をしている(　　)ちょっと待ってください

I translated it as "Please wait a bit while I prepare myself to go out" which means the proper answer would be ところを

But the answer sheet says it should be ところだから

And while I understand the から part, I don't understand why ところだ and not ところを

Can someone explain please ?

Thanks

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  • Duplicate? Particles following ところ （に, を, and で）.
    – sundowner
    Commented Dec 12, 2022 at 0:25
  • not really a duplicate, this post doesn't really answer my question =/
    – Yo Pomdpin
    Commented Dec 12, 2022 at 22:51
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    Exactly how is the question asked on the book? At least ところだから is not unique; obviously ところなので works as well.
    – sundowner
    Commented Dec 13, 2022 at 6:28
  • It's written exactly as I put it here. We're given a sentence with a blank and 3 choices. In that case we had ところを、ところだから and ところで.
    – Yo Pomdpin
    Commented Dec 14, 2022 at 9:30

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To my understanding, ところを is usually translated as although or even though normally...

Which means if you use ところを:

今、出かける準備をしているところをちょっと待ってください

It would translate to something sort of like:

  • Although I'm preparing to go out now, please wait a bit.

On the other hand, if you use だから

今、出かける準備をしているところだからちょっと待ってください

It would translate to:

  • I am in the process of preparing to go out now, so please wait a bit.

In that sentence ところ is being used slightly differently; which makes ところ translate to "in the process of doing verb". Which means that verb+ている+ところ is already indicating an on-going action that is in the process towards completion. This is the "while" state you were referring to.

Using ところだから seems like it would be correct...

However, I would like to know if there is an answer key that provides an English translation for this fill-in-the-blank sentence. Without that, I'm not exactly sure what the end goal objective for this sentence's meaning is supposed to be.

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  • I see, that would make sense indeed. Sadly there isn't any translation given by the book =/
    – Yo Pomdpin
    Commented Dec 12, 2022 at 22:52
  • Alright, well pretty much if there is no context regarding how you should answer it, then I'm not sure how to help any further. I can say that either sentence is technically grammatically correct. Although, I will say that the one with だから sounds a lot more natural due to the nature of the rest of the sentence.
    – levikara
    Commented Dec 13, 2022 at 8:15
  • Given your explication, だから does sounds better and more natural so I guess it's more of a linguistic difference between english and japanese, like a nuance we don't necessarily have in english. Thanks for your help !
    – Yo Pomdpin
    Commented Dec 14, 2022 at 9:31

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