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Sunday, November 6, 2011

It was broken?

A few week's ago, lots of students made the same mistake. In the task 5 conversation, the man's computer crashed, and everyone understood that the meaning was, "コンピュータが壊れちゃった." But when they summarize it, they said:
  • The man's computer was broken.
Is this how you translate コンピュータが壊れちゃった? 壊れる is 自動詞, but when people said this sentence, they turned the verb into 他動詞 and then used 受身.

I don't understand why my students did this, but you should know that switching 自動詞 into 他動詞 will often cause language errors.


This is correct, by the way:
  • The man's computer broke.
  • The man's computer crashed.

Please use English well!