I only know hiragana and katakana at this stage, so pardon the long sentence;
I'm learning from the "Japanese From Zero!" books. In the book, the answer it
gives for "I will be busy this Friday" is:

> こんしゅうの きんようびは いそがしいです。

This is in response to someone asking to hang out on Friday. I used に instead
of は when translating it. It seems to me that the literal English equivalents
would be "This Friday is busy." vs. "On Friday, I will be busy." Are the
sentences equal either way in Japanese, or is one more natural than the other?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-10T21:37:12.970
61433
2018-09-11T02:06:02.343
2018-09-10T21:57:57.243
22352
31226
question
grammar translation nuances
What is the more natural way of saying: "I will be busy this Friday."
> What is the more natural way of saying: "I will be busy this Friday."

I'll throw this out there since the "more natural" way could be dependent on
the context. If you are using "I will be busy this Friday" to decline/refuse
an invitation from a Japanese person, it is a very direct way of doing so, and
could even be considered rude. As you probably know, Japanese people are
generally not direct or confrontational, so a "more natural" way would be
something less direct, like

>   * [今週]{こん・しゅう}の[金曜日]{きん・よう・び}はむずかしい... → This Friday would be difficult
> ("for me to go" or something similar implied).
>   * 今週の金曜日はちょっと... → I'm not so sure about this Friday...
>
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-10T22:07:47.977
61434
2018-09-10T22:07:47.977
78
61433
answer
>   1. こんしゅうの きんようびは いそがしいです。
>   2. こんしゅうの きんようびに いそがしいです。
>

Both are grammatical and translate to "I will be busy this Friday" in English,
but they are used in different situations. Sentence 1 is used as a reply for
"Hey, can we have a meeting this Friday?", whereas Sentence 2 is used as a
reply for "Which day of this week are you busy?"

In Sentence 1, きんようび is marked with the topic-marker は. Japanese is a [topic-
prominent language](https://eastasiastudent.net/study/topic-prominent/) and は
is used to mark what you are talking _about_. Your literal translation will
not help you understand the difference because English is a subject-prominent
language. In essence, Sentence 1 is saying "Regarding this Friday, (I am)
busy." If someone has already mentioned "this Friday" in the conversation and
you need to say something about it, it's natural to mark it as the topic of
the sentence.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-11T01:57:16.160
61438
2018-09-11T02:06:02.343
2018-09-11T02:06:02.343
5010
5010
61433
answer