nihongo wo benkyou shitai

I think I have discovered a new rule-of-thumb for Japanese study: the shorter the English word, the harder it is to translate. For a long time now, I have been struggling to understand how to translate a very simple word. The reson I’ve been having trouble is that Japanese seems to have about 9 billion different translations. It’s a real pain as this word is used all the time in English – you simply cannot avoid it. The word? The word is for.

My misunderstanding of the word for stems from the fact that when used in English it often lacks context. For example, take a look at the following English:

1. This week I am studying for the exam.
2. He bought the guidebook for only 900 Yen.
3. She gave me a copy of her course notes for a beer.
4. I drove for 400 miles.
5. He has left for London.

Each of the above sentences uses for in a different context. In (1), we are preparing for something, (2) paying for something, (3) in exchange for something (4) in reference to time or distance and (5) in heading for somewhere.

Now we have added context, we can begin to see why the Japanese have so many different ways of saying for – they aren’t actually translating for, but rather the contextual meaning.

Let’s take the first example sentence above. "This week I am studying for the exam." implies that the action you are performing is in preparation for some event. One of the verbs for 'to prepare' is 備える. The translation of for in preparation sentences is ーに備えて, so this kind of makes sense. Alternatively, consider "He bought the guidebook for only 900 Yen." Here, the use of for indicates an amount, of money. One of the functions of the particle で is indicate amount or quantity, so here, for is translated as で. And so on. Let's have a look at the common uses of 'for'. One thing to note is that the Japanese equivalent of for comes after the noun that the for applies to.


When preparing FOR something (like an exam)

Here we use ーの備えて, a conjugation of the verb for 'to prepare', 備える.

English: This week I am studying for the exam.
Jenglish: [this week][exam][for][studying]
日本語： 今週、試験の備えて勉強している。


As payment FOR something

We can simply use the particle で as this is one of it's functions.

English: He bought the guidebook for only 900 Yen.
Jenglish: [guidebook][900 yen][only][bought]
日本語： 旅行案内書を900円でだけ買って。


When in exchange FOR something

Here, we use a conjugation of the verb 換える which means 'to exchange' (and yes, so does 替える). The conjugation is: ーと引き換えに

English: She gave me a copy of her course notes for a beer.
Jenglish: [she][me][beer][for][copy of course notes][gave]
日本語： 彼女は私にビールと引き換えに写しのコースのノートをくれました。


When FOR a time period or distance

The Japanese language has no translation for the word for here, so they don't bother!

English: I drove for 400 miles.
Jenglish: [400 miles][drove]
日本語： 400マイルを運転した。


When suitable FOR a purpose

OK, so you're probably seeing the pattern from above, so guess what the verb for 'to suit' is. Yep, it's 適する. We conjugate this to get ーに適して.

English: The park is a good place for eating lunch with friends.
Jenglish: [friends][with][lunch][for][park][good place]
日本語： 友達を昼食に適して公園はいい所です。


When FOR a purpose, FOR a reason, FOR the benefit of

Here we can use ―のために, ―のための, ―に or ―ので, depending on context.　I do wonder what the difference is between 'preparing for', 'suitable for' and this group, so I this as a catchall for those sentences not in the former two groups. This is, of course, probably wrong. Any help gratefully accepted.


And that's it for today! As you can imagine, there are many other uses, but it has taken several hours to research this and I think that the above pretty much covers everyday usage. I'm dead pleased that I've finally managed to have a look at this. No longer with sentences with for in them scare me. Bring It On!!

またね。。。