We, the French

Mikio91 · 30 Jun 2012

Hi all,

I've signed up to this forum hoping to find answers that I've never been able to find in my grammar book or elsewhere.

How could say the following?

'We, French people, like wine and bread.'

My try:

フランス人の私たちはパンとワインが好きです。

Note this is just a random example; what I'm actually interested in is how to form this structure in Japanese.

Thanks for any help.

undrentide · 30 Jun 2012

私たちフランス人はパンとワインが好きです。

Mikio91 · 30 Jun 2012

Thanks a lot.

So basically you just put the pronoun (here 'we') and the noun next to each other and that's it? Ok got it.

Glenn · 30 Jun 2012

Ha, I was thinking 我々フランス人はワインとパンを好む。

Yes, that's it! 我々日本人 (われわれにほんじん) is actually a pretty common phrase.

Mike Cash · 30 Jun 2012

The commas make it look like you're addressing French people.

Glenn · 30 Jun 2012

Ha. In that case it'd be フランス人よ、私たちはワインとパンが好きです。or something like that. That seems kind of weird to me though, like it's mixing formality levels...

Mikio91 · 30 Jun 2012

In my sentence, we = French people...

Toritoribe · 30 Jun 2012

Glenn said:
Ha. In that case it'd be フランス人よ、私たちはワインとパンが好きです。or something like that. That seems kind of weird to me though, like it's mixing formality levels...

"フランス人よ、我等はパンとワインを好む。" can solve the problem.

Glenn · 30 Jun 2012

I thought of something similar, but then it got me wondering -- how would one go about saying it with the more spoken formal style?

例えばただ「フランス人、私たちはワインとパンが好きですよ。」と言えばいいでしょうか。それとも「フランス人」を言わないほうがいいのでしょうか。でもそう言ってしまったら、対象となる者は曖昧になるんですけどね。さあ、どうでしょうかねえ。

Toritoribe · 30 Jun 2012

I would say フランス人の皆さん、私たち日本人もパンとワインが好きですよ or like that.

Glenn · 30 Jun 2012

Oh wow... somehow that seems amazingly obvious. Now that I've read that I can hear it in my head it's so obvious. haha

Mike Cash · 30 Jun 2012

Mikio91 said:
In my sentence, we = French people...

I understand that, but your use of commas in the English version changes the meaning. They are superfluous.

Had you said, "We, the French, like cheese and wine" it would have been fine. As originally written the sentence in English is ambiguous.

Mikio91 · 30 Jun 2012

Mike Cash said:
I understand that, but your use of commas in the English version changes the meaning. They are superfluous.

Had you said, "We, the French, like cheese and wine" it would have been fine. As originally written the sentence in English is ambiguous.

(Y) Actually, I put commas because in French there would be commas but I googled similar examples and I think you're right.

We, the French

Mikio91

grammar guy

undrentide

Japa'n vagyok

Mikio91

grammar guy

Glenn

一切皆苦

Mike Cash

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

Glenn

一切皆苦

Mikio91

grammar guy

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

Glenn

一切皆苦

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

Glenn

一切皆苦

Mike Cash

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

Mikio91

grammar guy

Similar threads