From these examples, we can see that the particle が is usually used with どれ, when it precedes questions. However, when どれ follows a noun, は will be used.
あなたの車はどれ？
Which one is your car?
The format of the English translation is the same:”Which one is your ____?" even though the Japanese is different. I understand that they are roughly equivalent; however, the second one makes more sense to me intuitively as “Your car is which one?” or “Your car is…?” As the “subject”, あなたの車 (or “your car”) goes at the beginning of the sentence in the literal translation. I strongly feel like this is more helpful when first learning the grammar point so you can internalize the actual meaning/rules, and then transform it to natural sounding English in your head.
Am I wrong about this? Does anyone have any thoughts? (I’m sure this debate is as old as time, but I have this issue quite often with Bunpro’s examples.)
You’re not wrong. In university, at least in the beginning, we were encouraged to translate sentences while maintaining the original Japanese structure as much as possible, given that the sentence still makes logical sense. For example, using one of the prompts you gave.
あなたの車はどれ？
Which one is your car?
This would be a sentence that we would translate something among the lines of “As for your car, which one is it?”. So, it would be useful for bunpro to have such a function, though I imagine it’s no easy task, but especially for beginners this is super helpful.
when I transate into English or my native language (in my mind) I always try to translate as the japanese order, because naturally it is how people usually speak.
Some people say “which one is your car?” another person is gonna say “your car…which one is it”?
Books tend to make all sentences the same order, I dont like that.
I’d imagine it’s because the writers want you to get into the mindset of Japanese as quickly as possible to avoid any massive bumps down the line. Similar to how eventually you want to go from translating sentences from J>E in your head to just J, if that makes any sense. I think of it like learning to play guitar but you hold the pick wrong for about a year; yeah, you can probably play some entry-level stuff, but eventually it’s going to hinder you and that could take a long time to correct instead of starting “proper” from the start.
I can see why people would want literal translations (especially if there’s some errors in the actual translation), but I feel like for long-term success with the least resistance, it’s the way to go. Of course that’s just personal preference and I did initially think about this when I first started my journey, but very quickly it’s something you kind of forget about as you start seeing more and more sentences that follow the same ruleset.
To me, this means seeing and getting used to the literal translation (“As for your car, which one is it?”). You don’t think it’s useful to see both the literal and natural translation? (I’m curious)
Hmm I mean yeah you understand that the literal translation is gonna be different, but trying to not even think of that if possible. Describing this is a pain in the butt hahaha, but I think in general being literal just causes too much confusion. Regarding output, if you rely on literal too much then your brain (at least mine) might be doing too much and trip you up when you’re trying to concoct a flow to the sentence. I know Tae Kim does a tiny bit of literal for some points when absolutely needed, not sure if other textbooks do it much either. Maybe my past attempts at other languages makes me biased towards natural explanations, as that’s how my instructors have always done it and I found it much easier to immerse when not having to do too much in my brain.
I think about using yomichan to search every word in a sentence but if you do that, it still doesn’t actually explain what’s going on sometimes. Similar to the many phrases and expressions that don’t have an English equivalent. I think I found early on that literal translations just made me more confused so I tried to avoid it. I don’t know where I’m even going with this answer anymore tbh but long story short, nah I don’t think it’s useful. Do you prefer literal translations? This is a subject I don’t think I’ve seen discussed much on here in the past and now I’m super curious as well to see what yours and others opinion is.
When I see “localized” examples (as opposed to literal), it makes me think the intention is just to internalize a sort of mental phrasebook that you pull things from, rather than understanding how the language actually works. I know that once you get fluent in a language you’re not exactly thinking about grammar rules, but you’re not fluent when you’re learning grammar points – you’re just trying to get a foundation. Becoming fluent in a language is a years-long process, and I’d rather understand it first.
I think they have different purposes. For these sentences I think it’s more important to have a natural translation that matches the nuance of the original sentence as closely as possible.
Bunpro does however include literal translation in some sentences for structures that don’t really have a natural equivalent in English to clue you in to what they’re looking for.
If you do a complete literal translation, it’s more of an analytical breakdown of a sentence rather than a real translation. This can be a useful tool if you’re struggling to understand a sentence, but the “translation” can get quite unwieldy as the sentences get more complex and it might not get you any closer to the actual meaning.
These examples don’t exist in isolation though. I’ve actually quite enjoyed the grammar explanations on this site, because despite being very compact, they do include some information about the origin of some structures, how they relate to each other, and yes, also sometimes their literal meanings, rather than just giving you phrases to memorize.
I think when it comes to sentences, breaking them down is left as an exercise to the reader, because I think how you break down sentences heavily depends on how comfortable you personally are with certain structures already. Where would you draw the line of how literal it needs to be? Understanding the literal meaning of a particular grammar point can certainly be useful, but I’d argue that applying this to translations of whole sentences can do more harm than good.
The example given in this thread is not particularly problematic, but let’s look at another common one:
なくてはいけない is an example of a double negative in Japanese, and actually has the meaning ‘(A) must be done’, or ‘must do (A)’.
While this grammar point is usually translated as ‘must do’, the literal translation is ‘must not, not do (A)’. This double ‘not’ is where many learners have difficulties. いけない simply means ‘cannot go’, and comes from the negative potential form of 行く.
Here, the literal meaning of the grammar in question is explained quite clearly I think. However, I’d definitely rather have this translated as “must” in future sentences rather than “must not not” or even “cannot not go”; that would just be confusing.
I like seeing both literal and natural translations, so that I can get a sense of both 1) how the construction goes together in Japanese and 2) how the feeling comes across.
I agree with chroipahtz above that the natural “localized” translations seem to be useful to create a mental list of phrases. But I also like understanding how things are put together. (What can I say, I’m an engineer. )
I often think about what’s the “right” way to teach Japanese. I feel like you need different levels of explanations at different points in the learning journey. So I actually think that the natural translation is more useful at the beginning, because you’re just trying to get a foothold on the language, but after a while I felt stuck with a list of “set phrases”, and I felt understanding better how the pieces came together became more helpful.
that the natural “localized” translations seem to be useful to create a mental list of phrases. But I also like understanding how things are put together. (What can I say, I’m an engineer. 
)