Lina Inverse said:
Well, I just went by what was written in my kanji handbook which mentioned that 'dai' can also mean 'very'. If that's wrong, blame the editor (Wolfgang Hadamitzky) although I had the feeling that he knows what he's talking about...
But if you tell me that he's wrong and it isn't used that way, I'll believe you
One of the problems I came across when I was teaching in Japan at various corporations around the Tokyo metro area was that they relied heavily on their Japanese to Engrish Dictionaries...
The problem was that they all believed that if it was in the dictionary, then it had to be true. Case in point, as an example:
Look up any Japanese to English dictionary available now (unless it's been revised and corrected recently) the word Hotondo. In the dictionary (ok, you'll have to know how to read hiragana at least) it lists in the Sanseido Daily Concise 4th edition (I have in my hands now) that hotondo is: almost, nearly.
One of the phrases I often heard in Japanese conversation is: "hotondo no nihonjin wa..." or "Most Japanese are...." as it should be translated as, but virtually all the Japanese students (and they were businessmen, businesswomen, engineers, architects, scientists, yeah, I taught all sorts of people while I was there of varying ages and backgrounds and those that came from various prefectures) always ended up saying: "Almost Japanese people are..."
Only the very few that lived in the US or other English speaking nation ever said "Almost all Japanese..." or "Most Japanese..."
The ones living in Japan would be saying "Almost Japanese...." around 90% of the time. I couldn't figure out where they learned that, because no native English speaker would teach that....then I figured out after a time, that they all relied upon the trusty Japanese to Engrish dictionaries far too much for their own good, because they were afraid to ask the instructor questions, and they liked to rely upon a book rather than embarrassing themselves in front of the class...
When I finally showed them that the dictionary was wrong, they were stunned. They couldn't conceive that a book made by a professional entity like Sanseido would introduce a mistake in their translations....
But the Sanseido didn't introduce the mistake...the students made the mistake by failing to understand that when translating a language into another one you can't rely upon a dictionary to give examples of all usages in all circumstances...
This is why some of them olde Japanese black and white movies that were translated from the early '60's and '70's were comical, because the translator was doing the same thing. I used to do the same thing, so I know it happens all the time. Sometimes I still do
And there are some stubborn fools with professional backgrounds in languages who have egos larger than their understanding of the language that keep putting forth tomes of knowledge that is better left for the tabloid press...
In short, when in doubt, ask a native speaker....they may not be able to answer why something is said in one fashion or another, but they can keep you from making a mistake that could come back to haunt you later...
that's my two yen's worth plus another yen for personal experience
to err is human....to keep making the same error leads to candidacy of Darwin Awards...