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I'm trying to translate some Japanese text I found to English (I'm very
beginner, and self-learning). There are two columns of Japanese; on the left:

私

い

日

本

が

and on the right:

大

子

き

で

す

I divided these columns into blocks, as follow:

私い = I (with Hiragana い used to strengthen the "I")

日本 = Japan

が = and

大 = large

子 = child

き = ki

です = copula ("is")

So, I'd translate it something like "I'm Japanese, and a large child is the
ki", but I'm not sure this is the correct translation. For example, what does
き "ki" exactly mean? Does it mean spiritual energy? And, if so, why it is not
written this way 気 ?

And is it correct to consider が as "and"? I found on an online dictionary that
が can indicate sentence subject (so would Japan be the subject in this case?
If so, how to reconstruct the phrase?)
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2012-08-22T09:50:49.990
6552
2012-08-22T15:40:04.407
1635
question
translation
Translation doubts (が, き...)
As the commenters above have mentioned, the sentence is likely

> 私 **は** 日本が大好きです (Watashi wa Nihon ga dai-suki desu)

If this is indeed what it was, `好き` ("suki") means "to like" (very loosely).
The kanji `好` means "good", "likeable", etc., and the accompanying `き` is
[okurigana](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okurigana) for the whole word `すき`. I
won't go into the details of okurigana here since that link explains it pretty
well.

In Japanese, to say "like X", the pattern is `Xが好き`. In this case, the `が` is
a subject marker. Often, `が` indicates a specific thing/example; what I like
to refer to as a "specifier". So in the pattern `Xが好き`, "X" is the thing
specified as being liked.

As for `大好き` ("dai-suki"), as you noted, the kanji `大` means
"large"/"big"/"great". So `大好き` means to really like/love (not romantic love)
something a lot.

So broken down, the sentence is

> 私は (As for me) 日本 (Japan) が (is what) 大好き (I really like)です。 → "I really
> like Japan!" or "I love Japan!"

Hope this helps!
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-08-22T15:18:01.823
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2012-08-22T15:40:04.407
2012-08-22T15:40:04.407
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answer