3

I am visiting Japan soon and want to let my host family know that I will be in the area and suggest meeting up while I'm there. Here's what I came up with:

たぶん一緒に晩ご飯を食べに合うとかしよう？

I'm not sure if this sounds natural or even grammatically correct. Please advise, thank you!

Chocolate
  • 62,056
  • 5
  • 95
  • 199
Arielle
  • 31
  • 2

2 Answers2

1

You don't need the word "たぶん" which means "probably" (Unless you think you might not actually be able to do this based on something that's happening on your end? In which case, more information than just that one word is needed).

If you want to convey a sense of "if possible", then a better word choice is 出来{でき}れば

Or you could say "if you have free time", which is: 時間{じかん}があれば

The rest seems ok. I'm not sure how emotionally close this family is to you, but if you want to convey a more "formal/polite/respectful" suggestion to them, しませんか sounds less "pushy" than しよう.

Not that しよう is necessarily bad. It's fine if you have a very close and friendly relationship with them.

As pointed out in the comments below, instead of 食べに会う (meet to eat), which though understandable is less natural, 食べに行く (go out to eat) is a better, more natural word choice.

出来{でき}れば、一緒に晩ご飯を食べに行ったりしませんか？

時間{じかん}があれば一緒に晩ご飯を食べに行ったりしませんか？

Chocolate
  • 62,056
  • 5
  • 95
  • 199
ericfromabeno
  • 4,263
  • 1
  • 9
  • 21
  • Sorry. Deleted my comment about a possible edit after I had seen the correction (but not your reference to it). – BJCUAI Jul 22 '18 at 02:41
  • 4
    「合う」じゃなくて「会う」でしょうね。。（「食べに会う」なんて言わないけど。） – Chocolate Jul 22 '18 at 05:11
  • copy paste de kizukanakatta. Thanks @Chocolate – ericfromabeno Jul 22 '18 at 14:12
  • You missed the part where she said "we don't say 「食べに会う」". – Earthliŋ Jul 22 '18 at 14:17
  • ah. I left it in thinking my "not natural but understandable" comment would suffice, but I can edit it out if that is a more desirable change. – ericfromabeno Jul 22 '18 at 14:31
  • 1
    こういう時にこそ「でも」を使ってみたら・・・　https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/21519/9831 – Chocolate Jul 22 '18 at 16:02
  • Would it be possible to say, 外食でしましょうか？　Let's go out and eat? – Jack Bosma Jul 22 '18 at 19:41
  • 1
    ^ Maybe you meant to type でも, not で, right? 「外食**でも**しましょうか」「一緒に食事**でも**どうですか」とかね・・・ – Chocolate Aug 02 '18 at 06:41
  • ^ I think maybe JACK was trying to use で in its "place marker" sense... as in 外で ... but 外食 being a type of "action" , で would not be used. – ericfromabeno Aug 02 '18 at 08:35
  • 2
    おおお。。。じゃ、「外食しましょうか。」とかですかね・・・「[外]{そと}で食事しましょう。」「外に/どこかに食べに行きましょう」とかでもいいかな　@Jack – Chocolate Aug 02 '18 at 13:40
1

I think a good replacement for "Maybe" could be "いつか" (someday) and "or something" could be 「～でも」 so the translation:「いつか晩ご飯でも食べに行きましょう。」

hiroki
  • 186
  • 2