But tigers and pumas come from different continents, and neither of those continents are Africa.
It’s mistranslated. They say hyō which is leopard. Puma is pyuuma.
So the leopard could be in Africa or the tiger and leopard could be together in India. Still wrong but slightly less so.
Maybe they are in a big cat sanctuary
I don’t think a big cat sanctuary counts as “on safari in Africa.”
Maybe they’re on safari in a big cat sanctuary in Africa
Or they browse the web.
Maybe the two can’t tell the difference between large felines.
- “I saw a mud crab a couple of days ago. Nasty creatures!”
- “Farewell!”
Oblivion-ass conversation
It being textbook standard 敬語 really cements that.
Only just noticed your username, Christophe.
I can read that!! I wasn’t really confident about it but a month of practice and I can see progress!
Also, yeah. I too think that’s a conversation two Japanese people would have in a safari.
(it’s not a lie)
Like, someone doing the test is also not going to believe a tiger made it all the way to Africa.
Or a puma for that matter. Or maybe they’re just visiting a zoo.
Farewell
Is this a polite conversation? I feel like it’s impolite to say that someone’s lying. It’s also impolite to lie (with a lot of caveats, but it’s at least impolite if it’s an obvious lie), so you don’t need to pretend to believe a person who’s trying to deceive you, but just accusing someone of lies without checking is rude.
It’s polite in the grammar sense. Japanese has different verb endings depending on the level of politeness. Speaker A is using polite form while B uses casual form. This is normal when the speakers are not on the same social/hierarchical level. Like a conversation between an employee and a boss, or a young person and an older person.
Although うそ literally means “it’s a lie”, it should have been translated to “Really?”
Wouldn’t it be even more accurate to translate it as “You’re lying!?”. Not sure it would fit the “polite” tone, but then again, they’re about to be eaten by a tiger and/or a puma.
You’re right. In practice it’s somewhat more casual, akin to “No way!”.
“I bought this bag of chips with half the price!” “うそ！”
Thank you ! That’s why it’s important that the language textbook labels this as polite. When students ask about it, they’ll learn about either a linguistic or cultural difference that could make communication more difficult, if it’s not addressed.
Also A is using polite sentence endings. 〜ます, 〜ました, and です.
There’s an old Chinese proverb: lies are like tigers; they are bad!
Looks like they travelled there for the big cat conference
Sayonara
残念だな。
