好き対気が入る ｜さ ｜文翻訳

皆さんこんにちは〜 ちょっと手伝ってくれませんか？

• 好き対気が入る
I'm wondering, what, if any difference is there between these two ways to say 'like' or 'be fond of'?

• さ
In casual language, what is the effect of さ? Contexts could make multiple meanings but I see it as a sentence softener. Is this accurate for the most part? I have casual Japanese friends but hesitate to use さ before I understand it.

• 翻訳
Please tell me if I have the gist of this sentence down:
「いやいや、頑張って自分でお金を稼いでみせるよ」
'No no, I'll show you I'll do my best to earn my own money!'
(Tricky to figure out where to put the 'show you')

よろしくお願いします。

1)
I believe you are talking about 気に入る "to be pleased with~."
Generally, 好き is stronger, and closer to "to love."

2)
Yeah, it has various meanings, but the main use is to show the speaker's assertion. It's mostly used by male and often sounds cold/curt.

3)
～てみせる doesn't mean "to show" there. It expresses the speaker's strong will/intention to do.
It's not 自分のお金. 自分で means "by myself."

1) Is ki ni iru generally interchangeable with suki, then? Just a bit less strong usually. Can it be used to talk about nouns? (Instead of ~ga suki desu, something else?) What about verbs? Is 泳ぐ気が入っている correct to say?

2) Is there any general advice for when (or more importantly, when not) to use sa? Or is it all very contextual?

3) Then a better translation would be more like 'I'll do my best to earn money by myself'?

1)
気に入る works as a verb, whereas 好き（だ） is an adjective, i.e., a state, thus, 気に入っている is closer to 好き.

水泳が気に入っている。
泳ぐの/ことが好きだ。
泳ぐの/ことが気に入っている。

2)
The best advise I can do is "it's better to avoid using a sentence final particle unless you have confidence with its meaning/nuance." I wrote this somewhere in this forum before, I believe sentence final particles are one of the hardest things to grasp for non-native learners, even for advanced learners.

3)
Right.

Hi, ledojaeger,

One thing I notice about the translation of "ganbaru" is that people tend to translate it as "I'll do my best" (or "do your best") in every situation. It's like the saying, "If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." I'm not saying that "ganbaru" doesn't mean "...do my/your/our best," but I am saying that ganbaru is a very context-heavy word when it comes to translating.

In this case:
いやいや、頑張って自分でお金を稼いでみせるよ

I think "ganbaru" implies that the person is emphasizing that they will do it on their own (under their own power/working hard), without outside help or influence. For example, if you took "ganbaru" entirely out of the sentence, you would only change the meaning by degrees, not substance (i.e. the sentence would almost translate exactly the same with or without ganbaru).

So, assuming (a big assumption, admittedly) that there is more context here (e.g. "Are you going to ask for their help?" "No, no...I'm going to..."), you could even translate this sentence as "...on my own, without their help." No reference to "do my best" at all.

I think the "shite miseru" ending backs up my interpretation because it's an "intent" that implies a bit of defiance on the part of the speaker.

Maybe a case of TMI (too much information), but these nuances are why I find languages interesting.

Yeah, indeed it totally depends on the context. Here's another possible situation.
A: お前怠け癖あるじゃん。みんなで働いた方が楽だし。
B: いやいや、頑張って自分でお金を稼いでみせるよ。

In this case, 頑張って means "do my best/working hard/without being lazy", and it can't be removed from the sentence since the meaning "without being lazy" is lost. It's the difference between the two interpretations 自分で頑張って vs 頑張って稼ぐ.

Exactly! That's why context is so important. The end translation in the target language can be different from the dictionary word-for-word, but communicate the meaning much better (and more accurately) to the reader.