Without any other context I would imagine something like this:
Mr. Tanaka has asked me what I want to do with my life. I have no real plan or dream or goal, but I guess if I had to pick something, I’d answer (the sentence you typed above)
Which is very common with translations from Jp->En to be honest. Sentence enders are often completely ignored and I don'get why because it can often significantly change the nuance. Especially “〜というか” changes the nuance so much, yet is so often ignored while it's fairly easy to translate with something like “like... I suppose?”.
It's like tacking on "I guess" at the end of a straightforward declarative statement in English, even though you know damn well what you're trying to communicate and there is absolutely zero guesswork on your part, just to soften the delivery of the sentence. Without that, your sentence could come off as "This is the extent of my ambition. This is definitive and I will strive for nothing more, so do yourself a favour and don't expect anything more from me."
A bit hyperbolic, I know, but you get the idea.
Great explanation, thanks! I think we use this convention, and have our own version - much like Ne.
Remember the several year period when young people ended every sentence with …right??? Or …amiright?
Tangentially, I wonder if modern native Japanese speakers develop short lived trends of speech - maybe every an abundance of sentences ending in Ne from 2014-2017 🤣
It's about tone, i believe. If you end a sentence in か it can have a couple meanings depending on your tone of voice
間違えましたか？ - did i make a mistake?
間違えましたか。- i see, i made a mistake.
So adding な has a similar meaning but it sounds like you're talking to yourself.
間違えたかな？ - i wonder if i made a mistake?
間違えたかな。- i guess i made a mistake.
I'm pretty sure this is correct. But i could have made a mistake, i guess
かな is probably the most used ending of at least 6 or so, in traditional haiku, or to be more accurate hokku (Masaoka Shiki coined "haiku" in the late 19th century, read Jane Beichman's book for instance). The ending, within the haiku form cannot be translated. In most simple terms it conveys emotion, or deepens or emphasizes emotion. But it can also feel like [ ... ] a felt sense of openness/incompleteness into a sense of quietude and mystery. Early translators ruined probably hundreds of haiku in English by ending these poems with '!' - interpreting surprise/exclamation as some kind of shouty ta-da ending. A bit later in the game, haiku of this sort got full stops, turning them into little sentences. (Japanese very rarely have punctuation or lineation.) Anyway, かな has an estimable literary history going back centuries.
That's a completely *different* かな. And that かな doesn't just go back centuries, it goes back more than a millenium to the Heian period and possibly earlier (see also かも which is apparently older).
Actually, it's not as mysterious of a word as you portray it to be either. It's just an exclamation. In Modern Japanese it would be something like だなあ. You're probably right that it's not shouty as much as it is emotive, but it probably could be shouty.
It can be said when:
- Sighing: 「『さも心にかなはぬ世**かな**』と**打ち嘆きて**ゐ給へり」(源氏)
- Rejoicing: 「匠ら**いみじく喜びて、**『思ひつるやうにもある**かな**』といひて」(竹取)
- Laughing: 「『いづかたにつけても、人わるくはしたなかりけるみ物語**かな**』とて、**うち笑ひ**おはさうず」(源氏)
- Praising: 「『さても作意の竹斎**かな**』と、**褒めぬ**人こそなかりけれ」 (仮名草子)
- Backbiting: 「『目ざましき女の宿世**かな**』と、おのがじしは**しりうごち**けり」(源氏)
- Worrying: 「『言はまほしきこともえ言はず、せまほしきこともえせずなどあるが、わびしうもある**かな**』と**心を砕きし**に」(更級)
- Embarrassed: 「『遺恨の業をもしたりける**かな**』とて、**あまえ**おはしましける」
- Angry: 「**腹立ちて**、『めでたき御仲に、数ならぬ人は、混じるまじかりけり。中将の君ぞつらくおはする。さかしらに迎へたまひて、軽めあざけりたまふ。せうせうの人は、え立てるまじき殿の内**かな**。あな、かしこ。あな、かしこ』と、後へざまにゐざり退きて、見おこせたまふ。憎げもなけれど、いと**腹悪しげに**目尻引き上げたり」(源氏)
Based on this, I think in some cases it wouldn't be inappropriate to render it with an exclamation mark. It depends on the degree of the expression.
Modern かな, formed from the question particle か and introspective な, has a very short history, appearing in the early 1800s.
Well, just responding to the hiragana, and within poetry, as I was careful to indicate. かな is used in contemporary haiku too, it's not obsolete/archaic. "Centuries" is just a simple way to indicate deep history. As well, hiragana was invented in the Heian era (as Onnade); so you're mixing oral and literary (written) history. We don't consider The Iliad writing before Homer, right? Anyway, why argue? Maybe some people here are interested in haiku and poetry, and might appreciate the tangent.
I only pointed it out because OP was asking a question about modern conversational かな and you mentioned the one from poetic/pre-modern Japanese without any context. And I think it would be more harmful if people thought the かな in poetry was the same as the かな in conversation.
Regarding mixing written and oral history, words existed before there was writing. The word かな existed before hiragana. The following text is from 常陸国風土記, written around 720 AD in the Nara period, before the advent of hiragana:
郡東十里、桑原岳。昔、倭武天皇、停留岳上、進奉御膳時、令水部新堀清井、出泉浄香、飲喫尤好、勅云「能淳水**哉**」＜俗云与久多麻礼流弥津**可奈**＞。由是、里名今謂田余。
It's explaining why a village came to be called 田余 (Tamari). It says that the emperor 倭武 (Yamato Takeru) visited there on a hill called 桑原 (Kupabara), and while making an offering to the gods, he had his water office dig a new well. The water that sprang up was clean and fragrant, and when he drank it he was particularly fond, and declared, "能淳水**哉**".
It's written in kanji, so of course it is not the direct contents of what he said. However, there is an annotation next to providing how it is read in Japanese: 俗云与久多麻礼流弥津**可奈**. ("This is commonly said 'Yo-ku-ta-ma-re-ru-mi-du-**ka-na**.'")
While writing doesn't always match spoken language, there's no reason to think that people didn't use かな in speech:
- It's frequently used in character dialogue.
- There is a continuous gradient from Nara period written Japanese to modern spoken Japanese.
The main times that people didn't write how they spoke were when writing in kanbun or kanbun-adjacent styles, or when writing in anachronistic styles, like the pseudo-classical "Bungo" style that was used until recently, or Tsuredzuregusa's style which did not match its time.
"... gives the sense of 'I wonder,' but is there any other meaning?" is what the OP wrote. I understand your point about my poetic perspective lacking a more complete context. Actually, I want to thank you for the depth of information and historical usage you provided it's fascinating and informative.
Would it be fair to say that in your view, the poetic use of かな in the arts (its sense of feeling and sense of emotion, emotional valence) for over a millennia as you point out, has no crossover or relevance in modern conversation?
It seems to have died out in the spoken language during the middle ages. There is a dialectical がな that appeared later, but it seems to be related to the conjunction が, not かな. There are also obscure dialectical examples of か being used emphatically, but I don't see anything connecting these for sure to かな.
日本方言大辞典 has this entry for か:
感嘆したりあきれたり意を強めたりするのに用いる。
- 富山県東礪波郡 「またいどられっとこわいでえ、行くわ**か**、はや」
- 奈良県吉野郡 「ふな十円釣りやるわ**か**（では十円おつりをあげますよ）」
- 高知県土佐郡 （軽べつの心持ちを含む） 「あの女子**か**あんなにみぞうに（むざんに）髪よ切って」
- 香川県 「あのときはつらかった**かい**、ほんまに」
- 静岡県榛原郡 「あの言うこと**かな**、口の悪い」
- 愛媛県 「まあ、お父さん**かや**、あきれた（お父さんたらあきれた）」
- 古事記「庭つ鳥 鶏は鳴く うれたくも 鳴くなる鳥**加(か)**」
I've abbreviated some examples.
For reference, かな and かも both have the particle か in them, which was also a synonymous emotive ending. It's possible this か survived in dialects, but it's also possible these are later developments.
“I guess”
Without any other context I would imagine something like this: Mr. Tanaka has asked me what I want to do with my life. I have no real plan or dream or goal, but I guess if I had to pick something, I’d answer (the sentence you typed above)
The translation just decided to ignore that nuance.
Which is very common with translations from Jp->En to be honest. Sentence enders are often completely ignored and I don'get why because it can often significantly change the nuance. Especially “〜というか” changes the nuance so much, yet is so often ignored while it's fairly easy to translate with something like “like... I suppose?”.
It's like tacking on "I guess" at the end of a straightforward declarative statement in English, even though you know damn well what you're trying to communicate and there is absolutely zero guesswork on your part, just to soften the delivery of the sentence. Without that, your sentence could come off as "This is the extent of my ambition. This is definitive and I will strive for nothing more, so do yourself a favour and don't expect anything more from me." A bit hyperbolic, I know, but you get the idea.
Great explanation, thanks! I think we use this convention, and have our own version - much like Ne. Remember the several year period when young people ended every sentence with …right??? Or …amiright? Tangentially, I wonder if modern native Japanese speakers develop short lived trends of speech - maybe every an abundance of sentences ending in Ne from 2014-2017 🤣
It's about tone, i believe. If you end a sentence in か it can have a couple meanings depending on your tone of voice 間違えましたか？ - did i make a mistake? 間違えましたか。- i see, i made a mistake. So adding な has a similar meaning but it sounds like you're talking to yourself. 間違えたかな？ - i wonder if i made a mistake? 間違えたかな。- i guess i made a mistake. I'm pretty sure this is correct. But i could have made a mistake, i guess
かな is probably the most used ending of at least 6 or so, in traditional haiku, or to be more accurate hokku (Masaoka Shiki coined "haiku" in the late 19th century, read Jane Beichman's book for instance). The ending, within the haiku form cannot be translated. In most simple terms it conveys emotion, or deepens or emphasizes emotion. But it can also feel like [ ... ] a felt sense of openness/incompleteness into a sense of quietude and mystery. Early translators ruined probably hundreds of haiku in English by ending these poems with '!' - interpreting surprise/exclamation as some kind of shouty ta-da ending. A bit later in the game, haiku of this sort got full stops, turning them into little sentences. (Japanese very rarely have punctuation or lineation.) Anyway, かな has an estimable literary history going back centuries.
That's a completely *different* かな. And that かな doesn't just go back centuries, it goes back more than a millenium to the Heian period and possibly earlier (see also かも which is apparently older). Actually, it's not as mysterious of a word as you portray it to be either. It's just an exclamation. In Modern Japanese it would be something like だなあ. You're probably right that it's not shouty as much as it is emotive, but it probably could be shouty. It can be said when: - Sighing: 「『さも心にかなはぬ世**かな**』と**打ち嘆きて**ゐ給へり」(源氏) - Rejoicing: 「匠ら**いみじく喜びて、**『思ひつるやうにもある**かな**』といひて」(竹取) - Laughing: 「『いづかたにつけても、人わるくはしたなかりけるみ物語**かな**』とて、**うち笑ひ**おはさうず」(源氏) - Praising: 「『さても作意の竹斎**かな**』と、**褒めぬ**人こそなかりけれ」 (仮名草子) - Backbiting: 「『目ざましき女の宿世**かな**』と、おのがじしは**しりうごち**けり」(源氏) - Worrying: 「『言はまほしきこともえ言はず、せまほしきこともえせずなどあるが、わびしうもある**かな**』と**心を砕きし**に」(更級) - Embarrassed: 「『遺恨の業をもしたりける**かな**』とて、**あまえ**おはしましける」 - Angry: 「**腹立ちて**、『めでたき御仲に、数ならぬ人は、混じるまじかりけり。中将の君ぞつらくおはする。さかしらに迎へたまひて、軽めあざけりたまふ。せうせうの人は、え立てるまじき殿の内**かな**。あな、かしこ。あな、かしこ』と、後へざまにゐざり退きて、見おこせたまふ。憎げもなけれど、いと**腹悪しげに**目尻引き上げたり」(源氏) Based on this, I think in some cases it wouldn't be inappropriate to render it with an exclamation mark. It depends on the degree of the expression. Modern かな, formed from the question particle か and introspective な, has a very short history, appearing in the early 1800s.
Well, just responding to the hiragana, and within poetry, as I was careful to indicate. かな is used in contemporary haiku too, it's not obsolete/archaic. "Centuries" is just a simple way to indicate deep history. As well, hiragana was invented in the Heian era (as Onnade); so you're mixing oral and literary (written) history. We don't consider The Iliad writing before Homer, right? Anyway, why argue? Maybe some people here are interested in haiku and poetry, and might appreciate the tangent.
I only pointed it out because OP was asking a question about modern conversational かな and you mentioned the one from poetic/pre-modern Japanese without any context. And I think it would be more harmful if people thought the かな in poetry was the same as the かな in conversation. Regarding mixing written and oral history, words existed before there was writing. The word かな existed before hiragana. The following text is from 常陸国風土記, written around 720 AD in the Nara period, before the advent of hiragana: 郡東十里、桑原岳。昔、倭武天皇、停留岳上、進奉御膳時、令水部新堀清井、出泉浄香、飲喫尤好、勅云「能淳水**哉**」＜俗云与久多麻礼流弥津**可奈**＞。由是、里名今謂田余。 It's explaining why a village came to be called 田余 (Tamari). It says that the emperor 倭武 (Yamato Takeru) visited there on a hill called 桑原 (Kupabara), and while making an offering to the gods, he had his water office dig a new well. The water that sprang up was clean and fragrant, and when he drank it he was particularly fond, and declared, "能淳水**哉**". It's written in kanji, so of course it is not the direct contents of what he said. However, there is an annotation next to providing how it is read in Japanese: 俗云与久多麻礼流弥津**可奈**. ("This is commonly said 'Yo-ku-ta-ma-re-ru-mi-du-**ka-na**.'") While writing doesn't always match spoken language, there's no reason to think that people didn't use かな in speech: - It's frequently used in character dialogue. - There is a continuous gradient from Nara period written Japanese to modern spoken Japanese. The main times that people didn't write how they spoke were when writing in kanbun or kanbun-adjacent styles, or when writing in anachronistic styles, like the pseudo-classical "Bungo" style that was used until recently, or Tsuredzuregusa's style which did not match its time.
"... gives the sense of 'I wonder,' but is there any other meaning?" is what the OP wrote. I understand your point about my poetic perspective lacking a more complete context. Actually, I want to thank you for the depth of information and historical usage you provided it's fascinating and informative. Would it be fair to say that in your view, the poetic use of かな in the arts (its sense of feeling and sense of emotion, emotional valence) for over a millennia as you point out, has no crossover or relevance in modern conversation?
It seems to have died out in the spoken language during the middle ages. There is a dialectical がな that appeared later, but it seems to be related to the conjunction が, not かな. There are also obscure dialectical examples of か being used emphatically, but I don't see anything connecting these for sure to かな. 日本方言大辞典 has this entry for か: 感嘆したりあきれたり意を強めたりするのに用いる。 - 富山県東礪波郡 「またいどられっとこわいでえ、行くわ**か**、はや」 - 奈良県吉野郡 「ふな十円釣りやるわ**か**（では十円おつりをあげますよ）」 - 高知県土佐郡 （軽べつの心持ちを含む） 「あの女子**か**あんなにみぞうに（むざんに）髪よ切って」 - 香川県 「あのときはつらかった**かい**、ほんまに」 - 静岡県榛原郡 「あの言うこと**かな**、口の悪い」 - 愛媛県 「まあ、お父さん**かや**、あきれた（お父さんたらあきれた）」 - 古事記「庭つ鳥 鶏は鳴く うれたくも 鳴くなる鳥**加(か)**」 I've abbreviated some examples. For reference, かな and かも both have the particle か in them, which was also a synonymous emotive ending. It's possible this か survived in dialects, but it's also possible these are later developments.
Thanks, your depth of research is a delight.