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Questions about Xは〜し〜しそれに〜

WonkoTheSane

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12 May 2013
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In class today we worked on Xは〜し、〜し、それに〜です。For example:

私の姪はスポーツができるし、明るいし、それにかっこいい人です。

My questions:
1. Is それに exactly the same as the し here, or is there a difference? All of the sentences we ran through made it appear to be the same.

2. Can I mix positives and negatives in the 〜し、〜し?
「このレストランは美味しいし、忙しいくないし、この店にしましょう。」

3. When I offered the sentence above about my niece, I was told that in Japan we don't really use かっこいい to describe girls, and was offered かわいい instead. While my niece is great in many ways, I don't think I could possibly describe her as かわいい if I'm understanding かわいい at all. I offered the possibility that perhaps American and Japanese girls are different since often American girls want to be thought of as cool, and my teacher gave me one of those 'Ah, I understand, that's certainly a possibility, and such an interesting observation!' responses which always leave me wondering if what I'm being told is 'Yeah, nope, you're just not getting it buddy.'

My teacher is Yokohama born and bred, and probably only in her early-mid 30s, so she's definitely aware of city girl attitudes and I presume she's at least encountered some of the young women wandering about Tokyo and Yokohama who would far more likely described as 'cool' rather than 'cute' if かわいい and かっこいい are truly synonymous with the English words.

Am I misunderstanding かっこいい as 'cool' in an abstract sense and should I think of it as 'male fashionable' or is this just a pure cultural difference thing whereas girls don't generally want to be cool in the American sense?

4. In trying to explain 'American girls want to be cool.' I was able to be understood by my teacher, but only because she's used to mangled grammar, I think. I used something like: アメリカの女の子はかっこいいことが欲しいではあります。

How far off was I and how can I appropriately express this thought?

Thanks for any help!
 
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1)
それに is not always necessary. You can remove it, or you can use other words such like あと, それと or 加えて.

2)
Yes, but there's a typo in 忙しくない. (Maybe you mean 混んでない "not to be crowded"?)

3)
かっこいい indeed has a nuance of "mannish" when used for girls, just like male role actresses in 宝塚 or Sigourney Weaver in Alien series.
素敵 might be close, but クール can convey the meaning, I think.

4)
I would say アメリカの女の子は "cool" でいたいと思っています。
 
Don't fall into the common error of always equating かわいい with "cute".
 
1)
それに is not always necessary. You can remove it, or you can use other words such like あと, それと or 加えて.

2)
Yes, but there's a typo in 忙しくない. (Maybe you mean 混んでない "not to be crowded"?)

3)
かっこいい indeed has a nuance of "mannish" when used for girls, just like male role actresses in 宝塚 or Sigourney Weaver in Alien series.
素敵 might be close, but クール can convey the meaning, I think.

4)
I would say アメリカの女の子は "cool" でいたいと思っています。

1. It seems like all of those possibilities are mostly just to break up the し、し、string and are completely interchangeable? Is this correct?

2. That's a much better word, I didn't know it, thanks! Yes, as usual I'm still making typos especially in conjugations, I'm not sure how to address this since I read over things multiple times and still miss them. Hopefully time and exposure will help.

3. Thanks, that explains it, I was incorrectly thinking of it as an English loanword.

4. Thanks! I didn't know about 〜ていたい/〜でいたい. That opens up a whole new grammar pattern to work on! Also, I noticed 「と思っています」which feels like it softens it into "~I'm thinking that." Am I correctly interpreting this?

Don't fall into the common error of always equating かわいい with "cute".

I have absolutely fallen into that error. How should I understand it?
 
Look at the kanji: 可愛い

Lovable, dear, precious, important to you, etc. depending on the circumstances.

Just keep your ears open for situations where it being used as "cute" would sound odd and you'll get a feel for it.
 
You can say she's かっこいい if you're talking about her personality (性格).
 
Look at the kanji: 可愛い

Lovable, dear, precious, important to you, etc. depending on the circumstances.

Just keep your ears open for situations where it being used as "cute" would sound odd and you'll get a feel for it.

Thanks, I looked it up and, unsurprisingly, it's a lot more varied than at first glance.

You can say she's かっこいい if you're talking about her personality (性格).

Much appreciated!
 
1. It seems like all of those possibilities are mostly just to break up the し、し、string and are completely interchangeable? Is this correct?
Yes, that's right.

Also, I noticed 「と思っています」which feels like it softens it into "~I'm thinking that." Am I correctly interpreting this?
The subject of 思っています is "American girls". "I think American girls want~" should be アメリカの女の子は "cool" でいたいと思っていると思います。
The following post might be somewhat helpful.
筆者は友人と話... / 自分はなぜ... / も / 玲姉 | Japan Forum
 
I had never encountered と思います outside of referencing myself.
Be careful, you'll almost never hear somebody say this without softening it and making it less definitive. (Otherwise you're saying that you know what somebody else is thinking which is impossible to do with certainty.) Like Toritoribe-san did in his second example: ~と思っていると思います
other ways:
~と思っているでしょう。
~と思っているみたいです。
~と思っているらしいです。
~と思っていると聞きました。
~と思っていると思いたいです。
~と思っているしか思えません。
など
 
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