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Utente eliminato
14 feb 2016

Domande Inglese (Regno Unito)

I was expecting you to be born outside the delivery room. sembra naturale?

a father's line to his kid
Should I say "waiting for you"?
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Igirisujin
14 feb 2016

  • Inglese (Regno Unito)
  • Inglese (Stati Uniti)

Naturale

This sentence is fine.

It means "I anticipated that you would be born outside the delivery room."

"outside the delivery room" could mean "not in the delivery room" or "near the delivery room".

Utente esperto
Utente eliminato
14 feb 2016

Thank you as always, Igirisujin! Yes! That's what I meant! :D

Igirisujin
14 feb 2016

  • Inglese (Regno Unito)
  • Inglese (Stati Uniti)

Naturale

Ah, I see.

"I was waiting for you to be born outside the delivery room" could mean the father was waiting outside.

To remove the ambiguity, I would say:

"I was outside the delivery room waiting for you to be born."

Utente esperto
Utente eliminato
14 feb 2016

Oops, it seems I misread your first answer. Yes. Your last sentence looks good! Thank you again, Igirisujin!

Igirisujin
14 feb 2016

  • Inglese (Regno Unito)
  • Inglese (Stati Uniti)

Naturale

Our messages crossed. Yes, I think the right version is the last one. =)

Sorry for the confusion.

"Expect" and "anticipate" are not the same as waiting, in this context they would mean 予見?

At first I read your sentence something like:

"I thought you were going to be born before we got to the hospital."

(We do say the family is "expecting" a baby when the mother is pregnant but again that means 予見します rather than waiting.)

I hope you can understand my Japanese, I'm using a dictionary.

Utente esperto
Utente eliminato
14 feb 2016

Thank you for the explanation, Igirisujin. I fully understand now. We don't say in Japanese, "My family is expecting a baby." So there is no good translation for "expecting". We are just say, "(Someone) is pregnant." Or we may say, "もうすぐ新しい家族が増えます。There will be a new family member soon."

Igirisujin
14 feb 2016

  • Inglese (Regno Unito)
  • Inglese (Stati Uniti)

Naturale

Thank you misokatsu, that's interesting.

"Expect" and "anticipate" have several meanings and the difference is quite subtle. I can see they might seem like "waiting".

"I'm expecting a postcard from my grandmother."

"He anticipated the punch."

The general sense is more like "thinking something will happen".

In fact, your first sentence was good. It sounds quite dramatic!

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Utente esperto
Utente eliminato
14 feb 2016

Thank you again, Igirisujin! Could I ask you a question? My understanding is "expect" tends to be used for good things; "anticipate" tends to be used for bad things. Is this correct?

Igirisujin
14 feb 2016

  • Inglese (Regno Unito)
  • Inglese (Stati Uniti)

Naturale

Not really. You could say "I'm expecting bad news" or "I'm anticipating good grades in my exams". So there's no implication of good or bad.

Utente esperto
Utente eliminato
14 feb 2016

Oh, I see. Thank you again, Igirisujin! I really appreciate your teaching me many things! :)

Igirisujin
14 feb 2016

  • Inglese (Regno Unito)
  • Inglese (Stati Uniti)

Naturale

どういたしまして。

One last thing about "expecting" for pregnancy.

We would say: the mother is expecting, or the parents are expecting, or the family is expecting. Most often it is used for the the mother.

We wouldn't say any other family members are expecting. That would sound like they were pregnant.

Utente esperto
Utente eliminato
14 feb 2016

That makes sense too! Thank you so much! :)

Igirisujin
14 feb 2016

  • Inglese (Regno Unito)
  • Inglese (Stati Uniti)

Naturale

No problem. I hope I can explain things better in Japanese soon!

Utente esperto
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