We, the French

[Mikio91]

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]

私たちフランス人はパンとワインが好きです。

 

[Mikio91]

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]

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]

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

 

[Glenn]

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]

In my sentence, we = French people...

 

[Toritoribe]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.