Quote:
Originally Posted by baronchar
Hi everybody. I apologize if this has been asked before, but I didn't see any threads devoted to it, nor did I see anything about it during my casual browsing of other language threads.
Anyways, my question is; what is the Japanese equivalent of "et cetera?" (If there is one)
Thanks!
|
Hi!
Etc.
You have your "nado" (e.g. hon, pen, kami nado = books, pen, paper, etc.), but in my own opinion, "nado" seems more of a written "etc." than a verbal etc. Or maybe I should say "nado" seems more formal.
You hear "toka" a lot in Japanese, which is often translated as "and," but it also gives that "and such" feel that's kind-of close to "etc."
hon toka pen toka kami toka = "books, and pens, and paper, and such"
Just for kicks, I looked up "nado" and "toka" on google:
”など” (nado) = more than 500 million hits
”とか” = (toka) more than 170 million hits
What does this prove? Not much, unfortunately. I could say it supports my hypothesis since the Internet is "written" Japanese, but I don't think that necessarily correlates.
P.S. The character "等" which is the kanji for "nado" pumps over a billion hits out of Google, but I think that's mainly because the character is used in a lot of compounds as well.