Thursday, March 06, 2008

〜をはじめとする

Here is another grammar point from my favorite book (not):

〜をはじめとする。

And an example sentence for kicks:

新幹線をはじめとする交通機関が雪のためストップしています。

I can't find a good English translation for this. My best effort is:

The Shinkansen, along with all other forms of transportation, are stopped due to the snow.

My wife (bless her) explained it to me in using chocolate:

チョコレートをはじめとする、甘い物は女性の好物です。

Which loosely can be translated as:

Girls like sweets, but chocolate comes first.

Or something like that.

If anyone has any hard translation for をはじめとする please comment and let's all learn!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

how do say you suck in Japanese?????

帝羅 said...

anonymous - in terms of something being bad or in terms of sucking on a straw?

Anonymous said...

so, what is the translation of your example:
新幹線をはじめとする...
according to your wife?

Anonymous said...

In my book, it can be used for any of the following: "for starters" "{most) of all" "to begin with" or "starting with"...or basically just to emphasize that it is the most important of various things, mentioned or not.

azusa76 said...

Sweets,including chocolate are favorite of all women. (How about this?)
When you want to study japanese,you may want to use this dictionary.
http://www.alc.co.jp/index.html