Quote:
Originally Posted by steven
I appreciate your answer MMM-- so I'm not crazy (at least in this instance), right? I should just come out and say what this is about-- this is from a practice test (which was written by Japanese people for Japanese people) and I'm being told that "did you..." is wrong. I'm also being told that "the" is wrong, because "this" is correct. I guess if you want to get into a Japanese high school (in my general area at least) it is imperitive that you know this kind of thing.
I thought about putting this in the English help... but I'm not sure. I kind of want to hear from Japanese speakers of English who might have some insight as to why it would be dangerous (for lack of a better word) to learn "did you" instead of "have you"-- like would learning/using "did you" induce certain errors or something like that. Not that I've noticed any teachers in my working life who take the time to think about "induced errors". Besides, as a naive English speaker myself, I too find that all of my examples would be correct. If nothing else, "did you" sounds better to me in most instances that I can come up with.
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この is "this," so I'd say it's better than "the."
For saying "did you
already" is incorrect, your teacher should be fired.
But yeah, just "did you read the book" would be an inaccurate translation. "Did you read the book" and "Did you already read the book" are different in meaning, and the same situation could have one be a Y and one be a N.
A: I went to the Bahamas and took my copy of
Some Prefer Nettles. *thinking: I read the book after returning to the States*
B: Did you read the book?
A: No.
versus
A: I went to the Bahamas and took my copy of
Some Prefer Nettles. *thinking: I read the book after returning to the States*
B: Did you read the book already? ("have you read the book yet" would technically be a more natural English phrase, but you get the picture)
A: Yes.