Tuesday, March 8, 2016

"終わる" and "済む"

https://hinative.com/en-US/questions/288674

[Question]
What is the difference between 終わる and 済む?

[Answer]
"終わる" means finishing something which is part of a continuing process.
彼の仕事は終わった。 His work was done.

"済む" means completing expected jobs.
Both meanings are very similar, so you can also say as follows.
"彼の仕事は済んだ"。 His work was done.

A minor difference is that "終わる" can be used when an expected job had not been completed.

For example, if a carpenter gave up his work building someone's house because of a severe earthquake, you can say "地震のために彼の仕事は終わった". 

In contrast, "済む" indicates completion as expected. So you can't say in the same situation "地震のために彼の仕事は済んだ"

"見る" and "見える"

https://hinative.com/en-US/questions/286870
[Question]
Which one is correct if I want to say "I'll watch a movie"?
映画を見る / 映画を見える

[Answer]
If you want to say "I'll watch a movie",
映画を見る is correct.
( Literal translation is "私は映画を見るつもりです" )

In fact, the word "見る" have a very broad meaning in Japanese.
Such as: look at, watch, see, stare, think, estimate, witness, take care, read, and so on.

"見る" implicitly indicates that a subject person is bearing something in his/her mind. 
"bearing something in one's mind" causes some activity, such as "look at", "watch", "see", "think"... and so on.
It will vary depending on the situation.
Anyway, "見る" is used when you are looking at something with intention.


"見える" has different meanings. 
"seems like" その動物は猫のように見える The animal seems like a cat.
↑ On this case, you have no intention to consider the animal as a cat.
"can see" ここから富士山が見える You can see Mt.Fuji from here.
↑ This sentence just conveys reality. It has no relation to anyone's intention.

"見込み" and "可能性"

"見込み" and "可能性" are similar, but not identical. There's some cases, those words are not interchangeable.

For example, we Japanese hardly use "見込み" on pessimistic expectation. 

このプロジェクトが成功する可能性はありますか natural
このプロジェクトが成功する見込みはありますか natural

このプロジェクトが失敗する可能性はありますか natural
このプロジェクトが失敗する見込みはありますか not natural

"は" is a topic marker

A question and answer at Hi-Native https://hinative.com/en-US/questions/274760
Question about Japanese

その飛行機は今ごろは関西際空港に当然着いてるはずだ。

その文について、どうして二つの「は」がありますか?

why are there two "は" in that sentence?

[Answer]
Strictly speaking, "は" is a topic marker.
A topic marker is a grammatical particle used to mark the topic of a sentence. This type of particles doesn't exist in European languages. Therefore, it may seem difficult to understand.

Maybe the following explanation helps you.

I will try to explain about your question.

Imagine there are many coins of different countries.
And there is a Japanese coin.
If you pick up it, you can say that:
”このコインは 日本では 使えます"
↑ There are two "は".

The first "は" distinguishes the Japanese coin from others.
If I translate "このコインは" strictly, I can say that
"I'm speaking about this coin, "

The second "は" distinguishes the location "日本" from the rest of the world.
If I translate "日本では" strictly, I can say that
"I'm speaking about in Japan, "

Therefore, "このコインは 日本では 使えます" can be translated as

"このコインは"   I'm speaking about this coin,
"日本では"       I'm speaking about in Japan,
"使えます"       This is usable

As this example shows, "は" is used to distinguish something from others.

This usage of "は" can be often omitted. For example,

(a) ”このコインは 日本では 使えます"
(b) ”このコインは 日本で 使えます"

Both of the above have almost same meaning.
However, the phrase "日本で" is more emphasized in the sentence (a) compared to (b).
That is because the role of "は", mentioning particular something among others.