In the English sentence, the word “cannot” appears. Where is that, in the accepted Japanese answer?
I would have thought that だせなくて would be correct.
What am I missing?
— Dave
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出せない (dasenai) vs. 出さない (dasanai)
Both 出せない (dasenai) and 出さない (dasanai) are negative forms of the verb 出す (dasu), but they convey different nuances.
出せない (dasenai) is the negative potential form of 出す (dasu). It means “cannot take out,” “cannot put out,” “cannot produce,” or “cannot send out.” This form is used when expressing the inability or impossibility to perform the action of 出す.
- Example: その本を出せない (sono hon wo dasenai) - “I cannot take out that book”
出さない (dasanai) is the negative plain form of 出す (dasu). It means “do not take out,” “do not put out,” “do not produce,” or “do not send out.” This form is used when expressing a decision or intention not to perform the action of 出す.
- Example: ゴミを出さない (gomi wo dasanai) - “I will not take out the trash”
— ChatGPT4’s answer.
Essentially it boils down to the person is apologizing for being prohibited from serving things beyond tea. It’s not they they are physically incapable but obligatorily so. In my reading you should be right that either makes sense in this context, but perhaps one is colloquially preferred.
I think this probably just comes down to the fact that saying “I’m sorry that I am serving you nothing but tea” (which is perhaps a bit closer to the literal meaning) is a really weird English sentence and doesn’t accurately convey the likely intention of the Japanese. しか〜ない tends to get very non-literal when translated as there is nothing really like しか in English. Bunpro generally does quite well at using examples/translations that are good balance between literal and still fairly natural in both languages (especially considering the sentences are essentially contextless) but there is a limit.
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I feel like this is しか~ない related and not the verbs perse.
The idea is if the restaurant could give things other than tea, the server would be able to, but for some reason today they can’t. (out of stock, the pipes froze, they don’t have soft drinks, machines are out of order etc.)
How I understand the verb difference is:
だせる means physically able to serve/ take out, which the server is able to do it, just right now they might not have anything other than tea so they can’t, but the ability is there.
だす is just “to take out/serve” , but they’re not bringing out anything other than tea so the server is sorry.
I would translate the sentence literally as
“Sorry for only serving tea”
The sorry is すみません
only is しか～ない
serving is だす
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In the simplest way I can think to describe it, imagine that the standard negative form is somewhere between ‘can’t’ and ‘won’t’ in English.
出さない as ‘Can’t’ implies that something is stopping the speaker.
出さない as ‘Won’t’ implies that the speaker is the one deciding to not do it.
Japanese doesn’t really make this distinction, and the nuance will be clear from context.
出せない on the other hand just puts far more emphasis on the action itself not being possible in the first place.
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The consensus, then, is that bunpro should also accept だせる? (It doesn’t, currently)
— Dave
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According to @Asher, だせる puts emphasis on the physical capability. There’s nothing in the sentence saying that the action is absolutely without a doubt unable to happen. It just is can’t as だす。
so だせる being used in this context would not be acceptable.
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