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How do I use proper grammar in the negation of "have not" for the following sentence translation?


I'm translating a DIALOUGE sentence from Japanese to English, and I'm having issues with keeping the negation of the verb "have not" in my translation while following proper English grammar, or avoiding the sentence reading awkwardly in English.


Below is the original Japanese sentence and underneath that are the individual segments parsed out with their English equivalent. (Particles are Japanese 'articles', and can mean different things based on the surrounding words or phrases).



貴女とて想いは同じではありませんか？



貴女 - feminine - 'you'


とて - particle - 'even'/'even though'/'on the grounds that'


想い - noun - 'thought'/'experience'/'hope'/'expectation'


は - topic particle (denotes topic of sentence)


同じ noun - 'same'/'similar' / etc.


では - conjunction - 'then'/'well'/'so'/'well then'



ありません - sentence ending verb - 'to have'/'to exist'/'to come about' negative polite form



か - Japanese question mark


The following are the English translations I've made after converting the literal translation to proper American English.


Even though you have not had similar thoughts then?


Even though you have not had similar thoughts as well?


Even you have not thought the same as well?


Even you have not similar thoughts as well?


A only-English-speaking friend I've run the above translations by suggested "Even you must have had similar thoughts?" which fits the situation, but leaves out the 'not'.


Based on the information above, which sentence works while leaving in the 'not', or what would you suggest as a alternate translation that works in English that contains the negation?



Answer



I think you're focusing too much on word-to-word translations. A Japanese-English dictionary cannot tell you what is appropriate in actual translation. All of the suggested "translations" you included in your question are either ungrammatical or so confusing as to be incomprehensible. That's the result of hewing too closely to "literal" equivalency: you get a "translation" that doesn't mean anything close to the original.


A negative question isn't the only way to convey the same meaning as ありませんか. In this sentence, that serves to mark the sentence as a tag question. There are other structures in English that express the same meaning. Same with the とて. "Even" isn't the only way to convey the kind of emphasis that とて expresses.


I'd suggest either



You must've had similar thoughts yourself.



or



Have you not had similar thoughts yourself?



if you're really dead-set on keeping a negative question.


In the future, I'd recommend trying to understand the meaning and purpose of the Japanese sentence as a whole before trying to convey that meaning in English. Breaking the sentence into its components and replacing those components one-by-one is not going to lead to an accurate translation.


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