りょくちゃは いい におい です。
I think this means ‘green tea has a good smell’ or ‘green tea is nicely scented’, but the sentence seems a little strange to me, as it is a mixture of the two. いい におい are adjective+noun, according tot he dictionary.
I don’t see why ‘です’ is used here, shouldn’t there be a different verb? Like ‘to have’?
Or am I missing some meaning of ‘です’?
You’re not really missing a meaning of です. The sentence is not how I’d translate that either - I’d be more inclined to say りょくちゃのにおいはいいです - precisely because におい is a noun, as you say. Where’d you get that sentence from?
I’m a bit hesitant to say it’s wrong per se, though, it could well be the/a correct way of saying it (it’s not impossible for Japanese words to not quite fit any concept in English, and rather be a mix of two or more or something in between - 好き for instance is somewhere between “like” and “liked” in meaning). It’s best not to try to translate things too literally, or to equate Japanese and English grammar too much, something might be a noun in Japanese but a verb or adjective in the translation, that’s just something that happens when you translate between two languages as unrelated to each other as English and Japanese are.
I read it here:
Maybe it is a little oversimplified… I understand much better your example.
I guess my first instinct would be to use ~がする for things having to do with the 5 senses.
Some talk about that here.
That does make me think it’s probably grammatically correct. Simplified, maybe, but it makes no sense to simplify something to the point of being wrong if you’re trying to teach someone a language.
And I guess in a way it makes sense. Japanese is a heavily contextual language, and some things are just omitted - like, in this case, the fact that you’re talking about the smell of green tea being a good smell, and not green tea literally being a scent.
Though in this case, we do that in English too. If I ask you what smells you like, you could very well answer with something like “freshly baked bread” or “orange”. Neither of those are smells, strictly speaking, but it’s contextually clear you’re talking about the smell of those things. I think this is much the same.
It’s also worth noting that は doesn’t necessarily mark the grammatical subject of the sentence, but rather the topic, which is what much of this misinterpretation hangs on.
I understand what you mean, I see my mistake, thanks so much!!
Omun, thank you for the link, really useful!!
Grammatically it is fine : noun-A は (adj.-)noun-B です
As for the meanig; I am still a beginer, but I have the feeling that it isn’t a generic “green tea has a good smell” (that would inded use other constructs), but rather a more technical description, like “green tea (specifically, that is contrastive-は) has nice fragancy”
Could it be that the surrounding sentences talk about the におい of other kind of teas or beverages ? or talk about other characteristics of green tea ?
… after following the link; it is indeed a presentation of green tea.
The sentence is not about what the speaker/writer feels about that tea, but a presentation of that tea particularities. (if it wasn"t aimed for learners I think である would have been used instead of です)
or ‘green tea is nicely scented’, but the sentence seems a little strange to me, as it is a mixture of the two. いい におい are adjective+noun, according tot he dictionary.
(ええぇ… その絵を見るの後で緑茶が飲みたいよ)
I’d say probably がする like Omun mentioned. である is just a more formal copula, I don’t think it changes anything grammatically compared to です.
I mean である has a specific feel of dictionary-like definition.
がする is more like for what the writer feels about; while です/である is more like a technical definition, isn’t it ?
Particularly since this was taken from a site that seems to be written by native speakers for learners of Japanese… I’d say this just points us once again towards an essential lesson: don’t expect Japanese to behave like English. りょくちゃは doesn’t make green tea into the subject and doesn’t point towards any sort of equivalence either. The sentence literally says, ‘As for green tea, good smell [affirmative]’. You can find examples of this sort of usage in classical Japanese poetry. One poem (whose name I’ve forgotten) about the good/distinctive things about each of the four seasons is chock full of these, and not a single sentence can be translated as ‘[season] is [description]’. The closest you can get to a literal translation for that poem is ‘as for [season], it’s [description]’, with the idea that these things are good or distinctive being simply implied.
If this is surprising (and it may well be), here’s another example of something unexpected: we often call が the ‘subject particle’, but「聖火リレーはオリンピックの時が特に素晴らしいものだ」(a sentence I found in an N1 grammar study book) is apparently fine as a way of saying that as far as torch relays go, they’re especially spectacular around the Olympics, even though what’s amazing is the torch relay, not the Olympic period. Literal translations between Japanese and English don’t always work, and sometimes aren’t even possible.
How would you say the same thing but mean the Olympic period in Japanese, then?
But in this instance it is what the writer feels, right? Whether or not something is a good smell is hugely subjective, it isn’t a technical definition in this example.
Though, in this sense it’s not so much about an opinion, but about a sensory perception, but that’s another use of がする, so I think it fits better than である/です/だ/<insert copula here>.
I’m not sure if there would be a difference. Could you be more specific? How would the Olympic be spectacular in your sentence? I think the problem is that with 聖火リレーは at the beginning, no other interpretation really makes sense.
I’m on mobile, so I’ll have to use romaji. I remember you can use to-iu-koto to turn a phrase to a noun. Could you do something similar here? After toki add something like de-aru-koto (idk if that’s a thing, just spitballin’ here) or something?
I guess the sentence would be grammatically correct, but I don’t think it would make much sense. What I really meant, however, was if you could say what you’d like to express in English, because I’m not sure what other elements would feature in the sentence. I’ll then see how it lines up with the sentence I saw in Japanese, and whether there’s a simple way to change it to match.
Something like, “The time of the Olympics when the torch is lit is beautiful.”
If this is surprising (and it may well be), here’s another example of something unexpected: we often call が the ‘subject particle’, but「聖火リレーはオリンピックの時が特に素晴らしいものだ」(a sentence I found in an N1 grammar study book) is apparently fine as a way of saying that as far as torch relays go, they’re especially spectacular around the Olympics, even though what’s amazing is the torch relay, not the Olympic period.
Basically the alternative meaning from here ^
Hm… I guess that would be more like オリンピックの聖火リレー（の時）が特に素晴らしい=‘The Olympic sacred torch relay (period) is especially marvellous’. That’s how I would do it anyhow.
So a different structure altogether, makes sense. Thanks for all the answers!
The sentence is definitely correct, albeit a little simplistic. I also still get fulled fooled (
) by the Xは as pointing to X actually doing something, but it doesn’t. That’s just the context.
Omun mentioned がする which would be one way. Another would be りょくちゃはにおいがいいです, but perhaps that’s overly specific and the original sentence conveys the point anyway 
.
You mean 緑茶が飲みたい?
I’ve seen である being used instead of だ in noun descriptors in old (100年前) children’s stories so that’s doable, but I haven’t seen it in anything more modern, so probably not super safe to go that route .