11

Consider:

  1. 自分について書きたいことがあります。 = There are times that I want to write about myself (lit: things concerning me)

  2. 自分自身について書きたいことがあります。

What is their difference?

I think the second sentence has more emphasis on "myself". If so, is this emphasis too subtle to translate effectively into English?

Also, is there any change in formality or colloquial nuance?

When translating into English, would the best option in the second sentence be to just put "about myself" into italics? This seems unnatural.

Community
  • 1
yadokari
  • 10,271
  • 6
  • 45
  • 87
  • See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexive_pronoun#Japanese – cypher Nov 29 '11 at 10:56
  • 2
    Asking the difference between the Japanese sentences makes sense, but asking the difference between the English translation, while you only show one of them, does not make sense. Even if you show both English translations, it still does not make sense. Are you asking about Japanese or about English? –  Nov 29 '11 at 14:36
  • Why is "subject" relevant to this question? –  Nov 29 '11 at 18:49
  • @sawa. I'm assuming subject relates to the use of I and myself in these sentences but perhaps I am wrong. I am interested if anyone would translate the second sentence differently from the first. Apparently there is a difference in meaning between the two sentences, but I have not received a more detailed answer than "the second sentence has more emphasis on myself". – yadokari Nov 29 '11 at 19:02
  • 2
    (1) I am not sure what you want to ask. Are you asking how 自分について書きたい事 and 自分自身について書きたい事 are different? (2) Anyway, 自分について書きたい事 and 自分自身について書きたい事 are both noun phrases while your English translation is a sentence, and therefore I guess that some words or context is missing. – Tsuyoshi Ito Nov 29 '11 at 19:16
  • so the japanese I am quoting are not grammatical sentences? I am interested in the subtleties between the two phrases and how one could adequately translate them into english. And I am interested if one is unable to translate the subtle difference between the two into english. If i follow you correctly, would I have to add this (があります) to turn these into complete grammatical sentences in Japanese? 自分について書きたい事があります。 – yadokari Nov 29 '11 at 19:49
  • 1
    As I wrote, neither 自分について書きたい事 nor 自分自身について書きたい事 is a sentence (grammatical or not). – Tsuyoshi Ito Nov 29 '11 at 21:33
  • Is "自分について書きたい事があります。" a grammatically correct sentence? – yadokari Nov 29 '11 at 21:46
  • I do not know what “grammatically correct” means, but it is a sentence. However, it does not sound perfectly natural to me for a subtle reason: 自分について already reveals the content of 事. I think that the unnaturalness I feel about that sentence is similar to that of 公園で遊んだ場所 (公園で already reveals where this 場所 is). – Tsuyoshi Ito Nov 29 '11 at 23:53
  • 3
    by “grammatically correct” I mean correct according to the established rules of japanese grammar.I assume, perhaps wrongly, that there are established rules of japanese grammar.I askeda japanese friend how to say "I'd like to write about myself." and she gave me the 1st sentence. After I posted my essay online someone suggested to me the 2nd sentence, but could not explain the difference in nuance between the two. If you are inspired to offer a third suggestion I would be grateful, though I fear you would be hesitant/loathe to do so. – yadokari Nov 30 '11 at 00:15
  • The odd thing is that 28 japanese ppl looked at that first line w/out suggesting that it was incorrect or unnatural, so I am interested in your and sawa's opinions. In any case thank you for your input. – yadokari Nov 30 '11 at 00:15
  • I'm not sure, but I get the feeling it's used in `自分自身について` in order to emphasize more firmly that you're talking about yourself and may take away from the `書きたい事` in this sentence. Looking at the Wikipedia page, I get the feeling it may not always be possible to translate the emphasis of `自分自身` fully, but I'm wondering if using italicized text as in "I'd like to write _about myself_" as opposed to "_I'd like to write_ about myself" may work to some degree? I've seen some other q&a sites write it in caps. – cypher Nov 30 '11 at 06:12
  • 2
    I am confused. I'm not sure what exactly is being focused on. Perhaps if the question was put forth more simply as just "What is the difference between 自分 and 自分自身". And as a separate note, I don't think ~ことがある is behaving how you expect it to behave. – Flaw Nov 30 '11 at 07:36
  • 1
    (1) Please delete the Japanese part “これら二つの文の英訳の違いは何ですか？” It means “What is the difference between the English translations of these two sentences?” Because you provide the same English translation for the two Japanese sentences, there is obviously no difference between these English translations. (2) Also, as sawa pointed out, the difference is not about subject. Note that the word “subject” has a technical meaning in grammar. – Tsuyoshi Ito Nov 30 '11 at 11:29
  • @flaw, would you please correct any discrepancies or mistakes in my translation or understanding of Japanese in what has been written in my question? thank you. If my understanding of Japanese is so flawed as to warrant an erasure of this question, please be kind enough to suggest that as well. Ito san, I wrote the same translation bcuz i was unable to come up w a difference, but i assumed that there is a difference, + someone better informed than me would be kind enough to enlighten me on that difference. – yadokari Nov 30 '11 at 16:32
  • Italic in questions: see http://japanese.stackexchange.com/editing-help#italics-bold. But you cannot italicize part of a word. If you want to do that, you have to use HTML tags. – Tsuyoshi Ito Nov 30 '11 at 17:10

1 Answers1

6

(1) about the difference in meaning between 「自分について書きたいことがあります。」and 「自分自身について書きたいことがあります。」.

According to the dictionaries 大辞泉 and 広辞苑 「自分自身」 emphasizes 「自分」.

Martin (p. 1050) translates both watakushi jishin and watakushi jibun as "I myself" and translates watakushi jibun jishin as "I myself (in person)..."; "I my very own self" - which are ways to emphasize "myself" without the use of italics (but it would depend on the context if a phrase like "in person" can be used in an actual translation).

None of these sources write anything about shifting emphasis elsewhere in a sentence that might contain jibun jishin (and surely Martin would have mentioned that if it were the case).

(2) a translation of 「自分について書きたいことがあります。」 would look something like "There are things about myself (that) I want to write about.". The variant 「自分自身について書きたいことがあります。」 puts emphasis on "myself" therefore in a translation one could use italics, or use a different phrase, or leave out the emphasis, all depending on the context. For instance: "There are things about myself I want to write about." "There are things about my own person I want to write about.".

References:
自分自身 in Yahoo! JAPAN-Yahoo!辞書 / 大辞泉
広辞苑 (1992)
Samual E. Martin (1987 [1975]) A reference grammar of Japanese

hurdsean
  • 821
  • 8
  • 10
  • thank you. "There are things about myself (that) I want to write about.". this is how i would translate that sentence as well. my translation was edited to read There are times that I want to write about myself (lit: things concerning me) I don't think こと here has to be concerned with "time". what do you think? – yadokari Dec 11 '11 at 23:12
  • @yadokari you can read up on these sentence patterns: Verb(plain)+ことがある, Verb(past)+ことがある, i-adj+ことがある. – Flaw Dec 12 '11 at 00:32
  • I'm thinking that if it was `書きたくなることがあります` it might mean "there are times I want to write things" but that `書きたいことがあります` might mean "there are things I want to write". This might be a good question to ask separately. – cypher Dec 12 '11 at 01:35
  • @cypher yes please do. – Flaw Dec 12 '11 at 02:00
  • @cypher yes have some – yadokari Dec 12 '11 at 06:10
  • OK, asked at http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/3977. It looks like it can be either depending on the context. – cypher Dec 13 '11 at 15:12