Help giving an acquaintance some advice

cuallito

Registered

5 Jul 2020

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• 5 Jul 2020

• #1

Hi, I want to help a Japanese acquaintance of mine who's been having some financial trouble. We've been communicating in English, and they've been using machine translation. I tried telling them this, but they could not make heads or tails of it:

"Just some advice I recently found out: in our world of modern fiat currency, money's worth what you make it worth. "

My attempt after learning Japanese for a day:

最近学んだアドバイスがある:
フィアット通貨の現代の世界で,
お金は価値を持って you それを作るものをの価値がある。

Is it good enough? I left 'you' in English because I wasn't sure how to translate it (politeness, social ranking and all that), and the sentence didn't make sense without it "money is worth what makes it worth"?

Thanks for any help.

 

Majestic

先輩

Ten-year veteran

12 Oct 2013

4,071

5,023

• 5 Jul 2020

• #2

Fiat currency = 不換紙幣、信用紙幣
不換紙幣の価値は、あなた次第

Somehow, it doesn't quite sound so positive in Japanese.

1. Its a difficult concept, and something of a tautology.
2. To someone who is having financial troubles, it might not be received very well (even though you may mean it in a very positive sense).

 

cuallito

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5 Jul 2020

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• 5 Jul 2020

• Thread starter
• #3

Thanks. Would it 'land' better if I took out the 'advice' part? ''Something I just recently found out...''

 

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

Moderator

Fifteen-year veteran

22 Feb 2008

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4,926

• 6 Jul 2020

• #4

My attempt
literal translation version: 最近発見したこと：現代の管理通貨制度の下では、貨幣はその価値を認める分の価値がある。

I, too, think 次第 is better.
最近発見したこと：現代の管理通貨制度の下では、貨幣の価値は自分次第である。

 

cuallito

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5 Jul 2020

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• 6 Jul 2020

• Thread starter
• #5

Thanks for the help! Could "Money is worth what you make it worth." be translated more as "Money is worth what we make it worth." So my friend doesn't think I'm trying to boss them around. Something like お金は私達がそれに価値を持って作るものを価値がある。?

 

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

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Fifteen-year veteran

22 Feb 2008

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• 6 Jul 2020

• #6

I'm not going to insult you, but both of your initial and latest translations are ungrammatical and don't make sense.
My translations imply that the subject is people in general, not second person.

 

cuallito

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5 Jul 2020

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• 6 Jul 2020

• Thread starter
• #7

Sorry, I didn't mean to say your translations were wrong. I was just thinking of the different ways you can say it. Oh well.