You know what? I really needed to think about this one (so meta), and seeing the original context sentence
休学の間、人生についてよく考えたいと思っています。
I want to think about my life during my leave of absence.
when you look at the english translation, at first glance it might look like something is missing - hey, where did the “と思っています” go? It just says I want to think ( 考えたい )
why wasn’t it translated as “I think I would like to contemplate about my life during my leave of absence”.
So why didn’t they? what’s going on here? This is the part where Japanese takes a turn and you can’t be literal when you read it, you’ve got to take the form into account and the form is not about the meaning of the sentence but about the level of politeness of the sentence which indicates your relationship to (with?) the listener.
休学の間、人生についてよく考えたいと思っています。
and
休学の間、人生についてよく考えたい。
are essentially the same sentence you add the masu form when you need to be polite, in this case adding “I think” before “I want to do x” (~たい) reductiveness would be a wrong translation since adding ます is not reductive towards the speaker intent but towards the directness of the intent expression. It’s basically impolite (if not to say extremely rude) to express a direct need/want/will to a stranger/supervisor/older person etc.
思う FOR UNCERTAINTY
Expressing uncertainty is an important part of Japanese culture. In general, Japanese speakers avoid making assertive statements unless it is an absolute fact, and 思う is often used to express this kind of uncertainty. 考える is used to express credibility, so it contradicts the idea of uncertainty and is not suitable for this use.
So basically, it’s a prefomative uncertainty, so it wouldn’t be wrong to understand it the way I do, and apperantely their next example
思う FOR FORMAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
This final use of 思う is kind of unique, and might feel a bit strange for English speakers. 思う (and usually in the polite 思います form) is often used to make an announcement about one’s intentions at public events, speeches, or gatherings.
shows when it functions like that.
If you add 建前 to the original sentence translation it would probably look like
休学の間、人生についてよく考えたいと思っています。
All I want to do is play pachinko on my leave of absence.
jk.
You can always use a translate option either built in or an add-on depending on the operating system you’re using. Using the strict filter when you search a Japanese word or phrase will usually give you some jp jp dictionary results as well as sites similar to the link I provided.
The trick is using visual cues (paragraphs, bullet points, the word you looked for, diagrams, tables etc.) that indicates which part of the page will give you your answers, and then if you can’t understand it, translating it with the add on. it’s a good way to start dealing with Japanese content, and improve your reading ability. You would in most cases (excluding tofugo, they are very thorough with their grammar explanations), have better example and context sentences.
It’s meaningless. Says nothing about my grammar level or even about my kanji level. Some people have no level cause it’s hidden some people have very low level and they actually made it to level 60 twice, some people have a golden 60 but haven’t started learning grammar yet.
…
had I given it more attention, I would have understood the meaning of the sentence. I should really work on my reading.