Just joking

[letslearn]

Just joking
Hey Guys,
In English we have the saying. Just joking, but seriously.......

In Japanese just joking can be じょだんですよ and seriously can be まじめ じゃ まじに、or really ほんと


Is there a colloquial way to say this expression in Japanese?

 

[FrustratedDave]

嘘やで、ほんまは...

 

[undrentide]

I'm joking : じょうだんですよ。 (polite)
Just kidding: じょうだんだって（ば）。 (colloquial, informal like between friends)

Seriously? Really? ほんとう？ほんとうに？ (polite)
まじ？まじで？ (colloquial, between/among friends only)

 

[letslearn]

What is the literal translation?

 

[undrentide]

じょうだんですよ。 (polite) - (It's) a joke. よ is to soften the expression.
じょうだんだって（ば）。 (colloquial, informal like between friends) ば is to emphasize the feeling.

ほんとう？ほんとうに？ (polite) - ほんとう？ (Is it) true? ほんとうに？ Really? (adverb)
まじ？まじで？ (colloquial, between/among friends only) まじ is slang for まじめ (serious) に makes adjective into adverb.

 

[dan91]

This probably is not worth starting a new thread over so i thought I'd ask here. Can someone explain to me in
layman's terms what the different between a clause and a sentence is. To my understanding a clause can't
be used independently whereas a sentence obviously can be. I need to know in order to determine whether
i should be using が or でも in my structure.

私は日本人ですが、ダニエルさんはオストラリア人です

Although the structure shows 2 sentences, が is still used. でも and が are both used for contradiction and contrast and
im failing to see how to distinguish their usage. I could always just play it safe and use けれども .Help please

 

[undrentide]

When connecting two clauses into a sentence, usually が is used.
でも and けれども are usually used when putting two sentences. (Maybe similar to "however" or "yet".)

ダニエルさんはオーストラリア人ですが、日本語も話します。
ダニエルさんはオーストラリア人です。けれども、日本語も話します。
Compared with けれども, でも sounds less formal/more colloquial.
ダニエルさんはオーストラリア人なんだ。でも、日本語も話すよ。

(Sorry my terminology in grammar may not be good/accurate.)

 

[Glenn]

A sentence is a certain type of clause, called an independent clause. There are clauses of dependent type that aren't sentences. Really, the only difference between が and でも in connectivity, is that が forms a complex sentence with two independent clauses joined (が is a conjunction), and でも is used to start a sentence, but not join two, so it's used with simple sentences as well as complex sentences.

でも、彼女が遅くまで遊んでたので昨日その顔も見なかった。

The above is an example of a complex sentence with でも. The two clauses joined together are でも、彼女が遅くまで遊んでたので (dependent) and 昨日その顔も見なかった (independent). The first one is dependent because of ので. Note, however, these types of utterances do occur on their own sometimes in speech, so you may hear quite often something like 明日試験があるので, where this is either an answer to something, or the second part is left implied ("I have to go study", "I need to go to bed", etc.).

 

[dan91]

Thanks for the thorough explanation. I always thought that でも was a sentential (independent clausal) conjunction and が was a clausal (dependent clausal) conjunction. But, i see what you mean by your examples. Thanks again

 

[Toritoribe]

が also can be used to join sentences, whereas でも can't be used to join clauses. Well, more accurately to say, it can't be an adversative conjunction. でも can be used to join cluases but the meaning is "even" for that case, not "but".
e.g.
ダニエルさんはオーストラリア人です。が、日本語も話せます。
遅くまで起きてでも、その顔が見たかった。