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Change translation

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casper1134_512221
New in Town
Posts: 3
Joined: May 26th, 2016 1:59 pm

Change translation

Postby casper1134_512221 » May 26th, 2016 2:03 pm

Hello,

New premium member here, love the site and the forum.

Pleas assist: In my Japanese Pod 101 daily word of the day email, the word for today is "Change" which is translated as "Kaeru", but when I type "Change" into Google Translate, I get "Henka suru".

Which translation is correct? Are they both correct? When do I use the different words?

Please help, this is not the first time I have encountered this.

mmmason8967
Expert on Something
Posts: 758
Joined: January 7th, 2012 12:24 pm

Re: Change translation

Postby mmmason8967 » May 26th, 2016 5:30 pm

Both of the translations are correct: henka suru and kaeru mean the same thing.

I think the difference is that kaeru is "wago" (Japanese native word) and henka suru is "kango" (word imported from China), and kango words and phrases are a bit more formal than the wago equivalents. It's similar to the way "conceal" sounds more formal than "hide" but they both mean the same thing.

マイケル

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community.japanese
Expert on Something
Posts: 2704
Joined: November 16th, 2012 8:54 am

Re: Change translation

Postby community.japanese » June 5th, 2016 10:53 pm

マイケルsan
Konnichiwa.
You are great as usual.

san,
マイケル san is a great teacher.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask us.
Yuki  由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

j.c.s.black_507401
Been Around a Bit
Posts: 49
Joined: August 13th, 2015 4:01 pm

Re: Change translation

Postby j.c.s.black_507401 » June 8th, 2016 7:36 pm

i some how remember that each with thoze can have that suru or not and should be kept that way in a box to know there any word yu get to can have two meaning and one with suru........

community.japanese
Expert on Something
Posts: 2704
Joined: November 16th, 2012 8:54 am

Re: Change translation

Postby community.japanese » June 19th, 2016 7:58 pm

san,
Konnichiwa. :)
Other verbs have the same thing, for example ‘eat’ means ‘taberu’ and ‘shokuji suru’, ‘cook’ means ‘tukuru’ and ‘ryouri suru’ and so on.
Yuki  由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

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