# Mainichi shinbun o yomimasu - ambiguity



## furrykef

Today I read in my Japanese grammar book that "Mainichi shinbun o yomimasu" means "I read the newspaper every day". But I know that there is also a newspaper called the Mainichi Shinbun, so it would seem to me that it could also mean "I read the Mainichi Shinbun." How can the two meanings be distinguished? How can I make both meanings unambiguous?

I just googled for the sentence in kanji, and I saw these two forms:

毎日、新聞を読みます。

毎日新聞を読みます。

I'm guessing the comma is inserted for exactly this sort of disambiguation, and a pause could be used similarly in speech, right? However, the version without the comma still seems ambiguous; one of the google hits was a Japanese site teaching Spanish, and it translated the sentence 私たちは毎日新聞をよみます as "We read the newspaper every day" in Spanish.

- Kef


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## _forumuser_

Good one.  I guess it's the same problem people in Jonesboro, Georgia have: 

I read the news daily.
I read the news daily.

Which do they mean? Only context will tell.


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## furrykef

Ahh, clever counterexample there. 

ありがとう！


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## karuna

It is understandable that the context is always very important. But would it be possible to add something to make it unambigous? Like in English I could say: I read the newspaper called "News Daily". 

What about: _"mainichi shinbun" to iu shinbun o yomimas. _
I don't like that _shinbun _is repeated but maybe there is a synonym for it; or can it be replaced with "_no wa"?_


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## Flaminius

Since  毎日新聞 is a major national daily, 「毎日新聞を読みます」 is hardly understood as meaning "I read newspaper everyday."  If disambiguation is really necessary, one can write:
『毎日新聞』を読みます.
Double frames 『 』 can signify the title of a book, magazine or newspaper.

If "I read newspaper everyday" is intended, 毎日 and 新聞 should be always separate.  One can separate them by a comma (毎日、新聞を読みます) or reversing the order of the words (新聞を毎日読みます).



> What about: _"mainichi shinbun" to iu shinbun o yomimas._


The second _shimbun_ can be ellipted by _-no_ (to iu-no-o yomimasu),  if it is a response to "Which newspaper do you read?"  There is, however, less room for confusion in spoken language in the first place.

1. maíníchíshìmbun-o yomimasu: 『毎日新聞』
2. maìnichi shímbún-o yomimasu: read newspaper everyday

In the first phrase, _mainichishimbun_ is pronounced with a gradual rising of pitch until "chi" and has a falling pitch at "shim."  The second phrase begins with a high pitch that immediately lowers.  Here, "shimbun" is uttered with a gradual rising.


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## lilhelper

What about using 
"O"mainichi shinbun? could that adress something else?


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## Hiro Sasaki

毎日、新聞を読みます。 Everyday, I read a newspaper. A pause after
毎日。


毎日新聞を読みます。 I read "Daily News" ( Mainichi Shinbun ) 

There will be nothing ambiguous.

Hiro Sasaki







furrykef said:


> Today I read in my Japanese grammar book that "Mainichi shinbun o yomimasu" means "I read the newspaper every day". But I know that there is also a newspaper called the Mainichi Shinbun, so it would seem to me that it could also mean "I read the Mainichi Shinbun." How can the two meanings be distinguished? How can I make both meanings unambiguous?
> 
> I just googled for the sentence in kanji, and I saw these two forms:
> 
> 毎日、新聞を読みます。
> 
> 毎日新聞を読みます。
> 
> I'm guessing the comma is inserted for exactly this sort of disambiguation, and a pause could be used similarly in speech, right? However, the version without the comma still seems ambiguous; one of the google hits was a Japanese site teaching Spanish, and it translated the sentence 私たちは毎日新聞をよみます as "We read the newspaper every day" in Spanish.
> 
> - Kef


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## Flaminius

lilhelper said:


> What about using
> "O"mainichi shinbun? could that adress something else?


Did you revert "mainichi shimbun-o"?  It's ungrammatical since _-o_ cannot precede a noun.


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## lilhelper

Flaminius said:


> Did you revert "mainichi shimbun-o"?  It's ungrammatical since _-o_ cannot precede a noun.



no that would be wo

I am talking o
in ocha,
Onishikigoi
and other words using o


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## Aoyama

As usual our respected moderator is (must be) right.
Contrary to what furrykef (post # 3) thinks, this is not really a counterexample .
Repeating what Flaminius already pertinently said, but in somewhat simpler terms (if I may say so):

maíníchíshìmbun /-wo yomimasu : I (usually) read the Mainichi         maíníchíshìmbun /-wo yonde imasu : I am reading the Mainichi
maìnichi/ shímbún-wo yomimasu : everyday I read a paper

the pause after the underlined part will clearly sate the difference.

A small typo for -o, should be -wo (introducing object complement).

Shi*m*bun, like ke*m*pei, ji*m*bo etc (but some exceptions : sanpo etc), usually in front of b and p, *n* becomes (phonetically) *m*, as in Romance languages (and others) where the change is both phonetic and graphic.


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