道の先に makes no sense for me

Question

this is my first question and I want to thank in advance all the people willing to help. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.

Context: I am translating a song, and 道の先に (at the road's end), when I try to translate word by word, saki ni(先に) means "Ahead of". Saki by itself (先) is translated as "First".

My Question: What is the reason that a word meaning "First" becomes "End" when used as a an adverb after a no(の) particle.

Is this one of those cases when "It just is" or is there a reason which is important to understand?

Thank you very much, and I apologize if my question was silly.

先 is a confusing word with many meanings. See this dictionary entry: https://jisho.org/search/%E5%85%88 — user3856370, Apr 23 '20 at 19:19
https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/16017/i-am-struggling-with-the-sometimes-conflicting-uses-of-%e5%85%88 might be helpful — Ringil, Apr 23 '20 at 20:15
As always in this kind of question, context is needed. Are you talking about this song? https://www.uta-net.com/song/51362/ — broccoli facemask, Apr 24 '20 at 03:09
@broccolifacemask-cloth, sorry about that! The song I was taking that from is "Reason, by Yuzu". — Lucasルカス, Apr 24 '20 at 07:03
@user3856370 Thank you so much. Unfortunately I had checked jisho before asking here and actually that's when I became confused. Kanjis really can be confusing, huh — Lucasルカス, Apr 24 '20 at 07:06

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 24 '20 at 16:42

先 (saki) can also mean "destination" (行き先), "tip" 矢先, "front", 先に "before" or "ahead".

Think of it as "ahead" or things that are in front of you, then the "end" of an arrow can also be seen as the tip. As in English where you can say "the wrong end" of a thing, which could also mean its tip or its butt depending on which angle you're looking at it. So if it refers to something you do first, you do it ahead of other things. If it refers to the "end" of something it also refers to something that lies ahead.

Thank you... After more reading, this answer actually now makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much! — Lucasルカス, May 11 '20 at 22:33

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 24 '20 at 04:19

-1

As for the meaning of 'ahead':. The destination of an object or action: the destination It has the meaning of It's not the grammar, it's the meaning of the words.

’先’の意味として：

・物や作用の向かう所：→行き着く目的地

という意味があります。文法ではなく言葉の意味です。

answered Apr 24 '20 at 04:19

r-beginners

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この英文ってDeepLで生成したものですか？機械翻訳を使うと意味の通らない文章になるのでご遠慮ください。なお回答は日本語でも結構です – broccoli facemask Apr 24 '20 at 04:54
アドバイス有難うございます。ご指摘の通りDeepLを使っています。翻訳精度が充分でない事も理解しており、日本語も併記しています。ただ機械翻訳を使わないとなると回答は消極的にならざるを得ません。 – r-beginners Apr 24 '20 at 05:09
日本語話者の参加がないとサイトとして成り立たないので、回答は日本語で大丈夫です。このサイトには他にも多くのユーザーがいるので、英語に直してほしい時はその旨記していただければ助かります。 – broccoli facemask Apr 24 '20 at 05:25

道の先に makes no sense for me

2 Answers2