Is the Jisho definition of どうした wrong? [Answered: no :P ]

Japanese
#1

I encountered this vocab item in the よつばと！deck. It, along with every Jisho-based source on the web, provides a definition of:

somehow, how, in what way, why, what kind of

However! There are problems…

First, the example sentences never support that definition, instead, they all support my existing understanding of “what’s wrong?” and “what’s up?” This is an example sentence you’ll see at Jisho.org, jpdb.io, and all the rest:

「おぅーい、どうした丹治」「前の学校で習ってない単元があって困っている」
“Oy, what’s up, Tanji?” “I’m having trouble because there’s a unit I didn’t take at my last school.”

Meanwhile, all the human conversations I have found agree with that as well:

Incidentally, the よつばと！deck also contains どうしたの, which it defines in the way I expect.

Finally, there’s the way よつば uses it in the book. She’s running around a department store excitedly, yelling “何だ？” and “あれだ!” and “どうした？”

In that context, I’m inclined to interpret it as “what is going on here???” (which is similar to “what’s up?”)

Help!

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#2

It looks like Jisho also has the more common (in my experience)
どうしたの as it’s own entry too.

I would say,
どうした / どうしたの when they’re ending a sentence meaning what’s wrong, what happened… is probably the normal use case.

I think the separate entry in Jisho for どうした is specifically the use where どうした is attaching to a noun, e.g.
どうした丹治

In this case, I think it’s just ending up with very similar meaning as
「おぅーい、丹治、どうした（の）」

but I think there could be cases, where you just wanted to have ‘in what way Noun’, where どうした would show up in the middle of the sentence.

I think this sentence
彼らは少しの間 どうした ものか 考えていたけど…

The noun is もの , and there’s no real way to match it to “what’s wrong?”/ “what’s up?”.
It’s more translating to

They, for a bit, thought about what kind of thing it was, but …

(or at least something roughly along those lines).

If you search just どうした sentences on Jisho, the majority are either
どうしたの - what’s wrong?
どうしたらいい - what should I do/what is good?
but there’s a few noun modifying ones, so I think it’s not too uncommon a usage.

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#3

Off the topic but Jisho is based on JMdict and I’d have to double check but I think the example sentences are from Tatoeba. Those other online dictionaries aren’t based on Jisho - they’re all based on JMdict. If you think a JMdict entry is wrong you can submit a suggestion for an edit or new definition etc. Sometimes there are mistakes or things are unnecessarily ambiguous.

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#4

Well, in English it’s definitely plausible to use “What’s up” to show concern for someone, similar to how “What’s wrong” is used. I could see myself asking someone “What’s up” with a certain tonal expression that implies concern and wanting to know what’s wrong. Although, in written form it can be somewhat hard to see this.

Something important to note going further, that I think will help you out, is that a lot of translations are more so just localizations. People will sometimes tend to “translate” using wording they feel more comfortable using in their native language to help the flow of the sentence, than use the dictionary definition.

If you'd like, here's a breakdown of how どうした is working:

どうした can be split into two parts - どう + past tense of する
If we look at the meaning of どう we get:

どう (adverb)
大辞林 第四版: 物事の内容・状態、またやり方などについて疑問に思う気持ちを表す。
明鏡国語辞典 第二版: 様子・方法などについて疑いを表す語。どのように。どんなふうに。
Essentially, a way of expressing doubt about a circumstance, condition, state, rule, etc.

Therefore, we get どう meaning “how” or “in what way” (notice that these are the same definitions for どうした… which is why English definitions tend to lack the full meaning of the word)

Now, when we append した we add onto this meaning getting: how was (it) done? What is “it” here? Well, it’s whatever the circumstance/situation in regards to Tanji.

This may or may not be a bit unclear, so I’ll try and elaborate what is happening a bit further. Essentially, because どう is a way of expressing doubt about a state/circumstance/rule/etc. it needs to be used in that context. So in the sentence where the person says 「おぅーい、どうした丹治」there is a certain state that Tanji is in, and this person is expressing “doubt” about that state. した is then appended onto どう because they’re inquiring into how that state had been “done”. It’s very awkward in English, but a better way of putting it (because する isn’t limited to just “to do”) would be ‘carry out’. So in the end, we get “How did this situation get carried out” … essentially, how was it ‘created’. And we can see this by Tanji’s response being “I’m having trouble (the situation I’m in was done) because there’s a unit I didn’t take at my last school”

Hopefully that helps!

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#5

Thanks! My main issue was that I could not turn up example sentences that demonstrated these other usages, even in those forums, where they just reinforce the usage that I was familiar with. The example sentence with Tanji, in particular — no surprise for me there, そうした means exactly what I’m familiar with it meaning, and I feel like I understand why it means that.

What I wasn’t seeing were sentences whereどうしたis used to mean “in what way”, “somehow”, or “what kind of”.

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#6

Ahhh, my bad. Sorry! I tend to skim through at times, I should have took more time to properly read through what your main issue was.

You’ll find that どうした will take on the meaning of “somehow”, “in what way”, or “what kind of” when paired with certain words.

Here’s some example sentences that support those English definitions:

「どうしたわけか熱が出てきた」(comes from 大辞林 第四版)

  • どうした here can be translated as “how”, “somehow”, “why”, “in what way”, “what kind of”
    • Somehow (most fitting):
      • どう + した + わけ + か - literally: done like how + reason + か
        • Just like 何か is ‘something’ わけか is ‘some reason’, but because どうした is describing わけ we have “a reason” + “done how”, so we end up with a reason done (some) how" which can be simplified to “somehow”
        • To further elaborate, the “some” is coming from the “how” (a reason done how) not being answered (using か to question)
    • how/why/in what way can all then be substituted in to mean the same thing because they all can carry the meaning the Japanese definition portrays and is a matter of preference
      • How did I catch a fever?
      • In what way, I don’t know, but I got a fever
      • For what kind of reason, I don’t know, but I caught a fever
      • Why did I get a fever?

「返事がないのはどうしたのか」(from デジタル大辞泉)

  • Once again, this can be translated used all of the English definitions (except somehow)
  • Quick note: のは - “The reason for …”
    • What is the reason for why (you) didn’t respond? (more naturally: Why didn’t you respond?)
    • The reason for why you didn’t respond, what kind of reason was it? (More naturally: What kind of reason do you have for not responding?)
    • How was it that you couldn’t respond? (localized to use 'couldn’t)
    • In what way was it that you couldn’t respond?
  • You’ll also notice you can use the meaning of “What’s up” here (What’s up with you not responding?)

I admit that these example sentences don’t provide clean examples for all English definitions of どうした, but I hope they at least provide clarity in that they can be used because they carry the meaning of what どうした is expressing, which is “how was something (typically a situation) done/brought about”.

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#7

That’s really helpful, thanks! I think I’m getting it.

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