of them

Tomii515 · 23 Oct 2007

I was wondering... How would you say 'of them' in Japanese?

We just recently learned this in French, and the French word is 'en'...

So, for example...

A: Hello.
B: Hello.
A: How much are the apples?
B: They're 5 dollars per pound/kilo.
A: I'm going to take 2 pounds/kilos of them, please. What's the total cost?
B: It's 10 dollars.
A: OK.
B: Here you are/There you go.
A: Thank you!
B: You're welcome.

So, how would this conversation go in japanese?

I'm pretty sure that in French it would be something like this:

A: Bonjour.
B: Bonjour.
A: Combien, les pommes?
B: C'est 5 euros le kilo.
A: Je vais en prendre 2 kilos, s'il vous plaît. Ca fait combien?
B: C'est 10 euros.
A: D'accord.
B: Voilà.
A: Merci!
B: De rien.

So... How would this conversation go in Japanese??

Thanks!

-Tommy

The7thSamurai · 23 Oct 2007

Japanese doesn't overuse nouns like we do in English. That why non-Japanese sound strange when they 'watashi' this and 'anata' that, as well as using 'it' and 'them' all the time to mark subjects and objects. To to answer your question, you wouldn't say anything for 'of them' because it's not needed. They would just say 二キロ下さい.

Tomii515 · 23 Oct 2007

Ahh... thanks. that was easy :] lokl

Charles Barkley · 23 Oct 2007

Re-read the English you wrote Tomii: its quite unnatural to begin with. Would you really say 'I'm going to take 5 kilos of them'? First of all, 'I'm going to take' might not even be grammatically correct in this sentence because it implies decisive action, whereas what's really happening here is an indirect request. And why add 'of them' in English? It would be quite redundant.

'I'll take 5 kilos.' would be a natural way to say this in English (though obviously not in a conversation happening in America).

Also, 'What's the total cost' and 'It's 10 dollars' both sound highly unnatural in English. They sound like sentences from some of the textbooks my students are using right now over here in Japan. If you are going to translate from English directly into Japanese (which isn't ideal anyway), at least use natural sounding English as your source text.

Tomii515 · 24 Oct 2007

Charles Barkley said:
Re-read the English you wrote Tomii: its quite unnatural to begin with. Would you really say 'I'm going to take 5 kilos of them'? First of all, 'I'm going to take' might not even be grammatically correct in this sentence because it implies decisive action, whereas what's really happening here is an indirect request. And why add 'of them' in English? It would be quite redundant.
'I'll take 5 kilos.' would be a natural way to say this in English (though obviously not in a conversation happening in America).
Also, 'What's the total cost' and 'It's 10 dollars' both sound highly unnatural in English. They sound like sentences from some of the textbooks my students are using right now over here in Japan. If you are going to translate from English directly into Japanese (which isn't ideal anyway), at least use natural sounding English as your source text.

I was translating the French, basically exact. I was wondering how I would say this in Japanese, because we just learned how to say these sorts of things in French...

So, I was trying to basically go from French - Japanese

Kurado-sama · 25 Oct 2007

of them? just use の after whatever noun your referring to at the time.
but there's really no literal way to say "of them" in Japanese.
noun+の is most equivelent.

Mikawa Ossan · 25 Oct 2007

Kurado-sama said:
of them? just use の after whatever noun your referring to at the time.
but there's really no literal way to say "of them" in Japanese.
noun+の is most equivalent.

Please pay no attention to this misinformation.

I think that given your example context, それを would be the closest thing to "of them".

For example, じゃ、それを5キロください。

Of course, I agree with Bucko's original post, and think that's the best answer on this thread so far.

of them

Tomii515

やった～！

The7thSamurai

Master of the Universe

Tomii515

やった～！

Charles Barkley

TNT Basketball Analyst

Tomii515

やった～！

Kurado-sama

分かっちゃいねえな

Mikawa Ossan

いかんわ！

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