39016
I came across the sentence:

> 先生、お聞きしたいことがあります **が** 。

I would have thought that this would mean "Teacher, there's something I want
to ask you, **but** ..." (が indicating an unfinished sentence), but the
English translation is simply put as

> "Teacher, there's something I want to ask you."

Is this just something missing from the translation or does ～が here have a
different meaning?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2016-09-07T02:23:03.507
39015
2021-08-28T01:48:54.323
2021-08-28T01:48:54.323
17667
question
particle-が
What is the meaning of が as a sentence-ending particle here?
が is used in this way fairly often to act as a 'softener' by implying
something like "there's something I want to ask, but I don't know if it's
okay/you're busy/etc". It's just a way of making your question less
impressing/more polite.

I suppose the reason why it's not often translated into English is that it
doesn't really carry the meaning of "but" explicitly, it's just a way of
making the request softer. If you translated it with the "but" in an English
sentence I wouldn't think it was because the person is just trying to be
polite, but they actually have some real reservations about asking that
question.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-09-07T02:45:12.997
39016
2016-09-07T02:45:12.997
39015
answer