Quote:
Originally Posted by alanX
Well I'm pretty sure I've said that at least 10 times to native Japanese, and they understood completely what I was saying, and didn't question it at all.
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Being understood and being gramatically correct are two entirely different things. When a little robot girl in Chobits says あたしわかりますです, I understand what she's saying, but she's terrifically ungrammatical about it. It's supposed to make her sound cute. But her grammar is terrible.
I'd gesture at the girl and say きれいなぁ.
Someone earlier in the thread did, however, point out an interesting thing about その vs. あの. The former usually is used when referring to things unfamiliar to the addressee, and the latter to things more familiar. For example, if you told a story about a hot spring that you went to
with the addressee, you could talk about あの温泉. If you were relating your experience to someone who hasn't been there or didn't go with you, その温泉 is more correct.
I suppose this might transfer over to talking about a girl walking by, but I sure wouldn't bet on it. In that sense, the difference between その and あの is more likely to express the nearness of the girl to the addressee. And hopefully the girl is not within earshot, so あの is better.