4610
The following Japanese sentence was translated with `その` as "the":

> **その** 仕事の一部を誰かにやってもらったほうがいい。  
>  You should get someone else to do some of **the** work for you.

while I translated it with `その` as "that":

> You'd better get someone to do part of **that** job for you.

When `その` is translated as "the," will it be ignoring some part of it's
meaning?

Furthermore, if `その` is deleted as:

> 仕事の一部を誰かにやってもらったほうがいい。

would it be ungrammatical? By intending `仕事` to mean "job/work in general" as
opposed to specifically "that job/work," would the meaning become too vague to
be adequately comprehensible?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-02-07T20:52:58.263
4598
2012-02-09T13:00:59.927
2012-02-07T21:50:53.013
706
question
grammar words demonstratives
Is その always or only occasionally a demonstrative adjective?
その is not always a demonstrative. When used anaphorically it does not obey the
general rule of:

  * こ~ nearer to the speaker than listener

  * そ~ nearer to the listener than the speaker

  * あ~ removed from both speaker and listener

When the referent is known to the speaker but either unknown to the listener
or the speaker thinks that the listener does not know the referent well enough
the speaker uses その.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-02-08T01:55:38.103
4601
2012-02-08T01:55:38.103
542
4598
answer
There are definitely cases where it doesn't make sense to translate その into an
English demonstrative adjective.

> アインシュタインとその人生 Einstein and his life ('his', I guess, is a possesive pronoun)
>
> まあ、その、なんていうか... Well, oh, you know... (filler word)

Another thing to point out: Japanese speakers tend to use personal pronouns
(including possesive pronouns) less than English speakers. Sometimes Japanese
speakers might use その in cases where 'your' might be more natural in English.

> そのケータイ、いいねぇ Your cell phone is cool!

If you're really asking whether, when translating to English, その should often
be translated to the article 'the' instead of 'that', then I would say
_usually_ no. If there's a need to specify which object is referred in
Japanese, there's a good chance the need is there in English as well. But
then, it really depends on the situation and context, so it's hard to give
exact rules.

> 仕事の一部を誰かにやってもらったほうがいい

is gramatically fine per se, just as the job/that job/your job all work in the
English version. But その仕事 sounds more like 'the task you're working on right
now', where just 仕事 _could_ be taken as 'your job' (i.e. your position).
Again, hard to say exactly without more context.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-02-09T06:33:34.780
4610
2012-02-09T13:00:59.927
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
-1
1073
4598
answer