Quote:
Originally Posted by hatsuto11
The meaning of は is very far from 'is'. Basically the copula 'です' can be translated as 'is/are...'.
In that context in particular, it can replaced with 'is' in English. But that meaning is not accurate.
Anyway, you might be right about that (only in our case). I was actually intending to mention that in my post but i didn't since i was afraid that you will start arguing the moment you see it.
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Literal translation...the mother of all mistakes (and I do that too ften too LOL). Actually the word translation should be banned, above all for languages which are so different like Japanese-English. Interpretation would be a better definition.
I think the easiest way is to simply forget the verb to be. As a matter of fact even です it is not a strict is/are. If you see it that way, many phrases will not work when you go and translate them (above all when you meet ellictic forms).