One of the example sentences in the あの grammar lesson is 「あのラーメン屋は美味しいです」. The English translation given for this sentence is “That ramen shop over there is delicious”, which seems to be correct.
My question though is, would this be natural to say? In English, at least in American English, we would say “The ramen at that ramen shop is delicious”. If I just said “That ramen shop is delicious” it would imply the building itself was tasty. Is this also the case for Japanese?
I can confirm that it definitely sounds natural, at least to me.
However, in terms of English, I’m also American and would say “That restaurant is so good” without a second thought. Same with name-brand chains, “[insert restaurant/chain name] is delicious!”. So I don’t fully understand where you’re coming from that the literal English translation wouldn’t make sense.
That being said, it’s best not to assume that if the literal translation doesn’t sound right that the Japanese doesn’t sound right either. It is very rarely the case that a literally translated sentence from either language will sound natural in the other.
I hadn’t considered that it might be more of a regionalism; that is a good point.
And that’s exactly why I asked. I didn’t want to assume that just because the English sounded strange to me that the Japanese would or would not be odd.
Personally I would not add “The ramen…” because it’s adding a specification nuance that isn’t implied. Yes, it’s likely the ramen they are referring to but some ramen shops make side dishes and what not. So whatever comes out of that kitchen (ramen+) is yummy is how I’m hearing it.
Careful on the “there” and “over there” nuance too for あの…this seems to come up alot on the boards lately. It’s tricky because we don’t have a physical context to practice (I’ve gotten burnt before in the real world). I think English tends to blend there/over-there more but for the sake of the exercise without a visual, we need “over there” to keep あの.
Admittedly, “the food at” would have been a better choice of phrase than “the ramen at”, but I just didn’t think of it at the time.
As for “over there”, I am aware that the difference is quite important in Japanese, but it’s not really something I would usually specify in English, so I left it out of my example of how I would say a similar sentence in English. That was probably a poor choice on my part and I’ll have to be more careful with あの & その.
I did ask a few other people around me what they thought about the sentence “That restaurant is delicious.” and everyone I asked seemed to feel that it was awkward, so I’m guessing the need to be specific with what is delicious just depends on where you are from.
I agree that in English “That restaurant is delicious!” sounds weird, while “That restaurant is so good!” sounds perfectly natural, maybe because “delicious” as an adjective almost exclusively has to deal with food (unless you’re taking some sort of creative linguistic license, like creepily telling your date “You look delicious tonight!” and rightfully taking a slap in the face), while “so good” is open to any number of things.
I think it’s a good question - can 「美味しい」be used more broadly like “so good”, or does it have stricter guardrails like “delicious” does? More of a nuance question than a grammar question, and I imagine the same question can be asked about pretty much every adjective out there.
@Evueimeimei, @Houndstooth, @s1212z, and @monkeytunes Thank you all for your discussion on this topic. Would this work better?
With the second sentence there to clarify that the word is actually delicious, yes, that’s a bit more natural sounding, at least to me.
I’ve heard "kono mise no aji ga daisuki desu" which sounds unnatural in English in a similar way. “I love the flavour of that shop”.
As others said, just be careful about relying on natural English translations to understand Japanese because natural English translations will often confuse you more than help you as to what the Japanese is truly saying.
A common example is the sentence "Watashi ha koohi ga suki da".
It’s usually translated to “I like coffee” because that’s what sounds natural in English, but that’s not actually what the Japanese really means.
In the English sentence “I” is the subject and it is doing the verb “like” to “coffee” which is the object but, in the Japanese sentence “I” is the topic, “koohi” is the subject and “suki” is an adjective, so it would more literally be translated like “As for me, coffee is desire inducing” or “In relation to me, coffee is pleasing”. It doesn’t sound very natural in English, but that’s what it’s actually saying and if you don’t realise that it can confuse you with regard to how the grammar really works.
