化(か)する-ification, -ization, To make something, To change, To become, Transform into

Most Recent Replies (13 in total)

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  semanticman

  If this is indeed true, then the upshot is that the explanation of this grammar point is very bad and should be re-written. The only example of using 化 on its own as a suffix is accompanied by this:

  However, in formal/scientific writing, the する (and の) may sometimes be dropped.

  日本では高齢化が進んでいる。
  In Japan, the population is aging progressively.

  Is there a way we can flag this discussion for the editorial team? I don’t know if it’s cool to @ just anyone.

• 

  nekoyama

  You can at the people with a bunpro logo in their icon, they usually aren’t offended by customers asking questions about their product!

  In the sentence you quoted maybe a translation along the lines of “the aging of the population is progressing” would make it easier to map the parts?

  But this grammar point tends to produce weird translations if they’re too literal. For example, the 高齢化 has a companion, the 少子化 (small-number-of-children-ification of a society) and they’re often grouped together as 少子高齢化 too. In English we’d probably have to split that up again to make sense.

  If you want more examples, another one that tends to come up in JLPT questions is 地球温暖化 (global warming). Or look at chemicals, those can be kind of easy to map to English. E.g. 酸素 is oxygen and 酸化 is oxidation. So something like carbon dioxide becomes 二酸化炭素 (~twice oxidized carbon), etc. Maybe a bit above N4 now that I think about it.

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  semanticman

  Yeah I guess I’ll just @Asher because I’m familiar with him from the book club threads, I’m just not sure if this is his area of responsibility.