19718
Someone on a Japanese learners' forum I frequent posted a question asking
someone to help him translate the following:

> どうしても先に進むつもりなのね・・・ だったら・・・

I translated the bit 「先に」 as 「せんに」, but another commenter (who I think has
more expertise) translated it as 「さきに」. We both ended up with similar meanings
(I suggested "into the future" whereas he simply said "forward").

But my question is, given that both 先｛せん｝ and 先｛さき｝ have similar meanings, how
can I tell whether I'm supposed to read it as せん or さき? Are both acceptable?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-11-29T17:52:21.707
19717
2014-11-29T19:07:32.853
3035
question
readings
How to tell the difference between 先｛せん｝ and 先｛さき｝?
先に in your example is definitely read as 「さきに」.

There are two reasons we couldn't pronounce it 「せんに」.

  1. [先]{せん} is almost obsolete as an independent word, merely remains inside a few compounds (ex. [先立って]{せんだって} "the other day, in advance", [先手]{せんて} "being the player that moves first, forstallment").
  2. [先]{せん} only has a meaning as "beforehand", but not "future" or "forward".

By the way, 先に進む could have two interpretations, "to go ahead (towards
something comes next)" if you take 先 as an object, or "to go ahead first", as
an adverb. I guess the first one should fit the case.

cf. the Japanese-Japanese dictionary entry for
[[先]{さき}](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/86612/m0u/%E5%85%88/) and
[[先]{せん}](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/125508/m0u/%E5%85%88/)
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-11-29T19:07:32.853
19718
2014-11-29T19:07:32.853
7810
19717
answer