Lexical Leavings
by Tom Gally
Most--maybe all--English-Japanese dictionaries gloss the future tense
"will" and "be going to" as …だろう or …でしょう. This is extremely
misleading, as it suggests a tentativeness that the English future
tense does not have. This misunderstanding persists in phrase and
sentence examples, as shown by the following from three different
dictionaries:The party will be postponed if it rains tomorrow.This persistent mistranslation is the equivalent of teaching the pronunciation of the English voiced and unvoiced /th/ sounds using サ行 katakana--it forces an English category into an inappropriate Japanese category and thereby sows error and confusion.
あす雨ならパーティーは延期されるだろう。
the shit hit [is going to hit, will hit] the fan
〔卑〕 大変面倒なことになった［なるだろう］
By the time you have washed and dressed, breakfast will be ready.
顔を洗って着替えたころには朝食の用意ができるでしょう。
(February 13, 2003)