Is その always or only occasionally a demonstrative adjective?


The following Japanese sentence was translated with `その` as "the":

> **その** 仕事の一部を誰かにやってもらったほうがいい。  
>  You should get someone else to do some of **the** work for you.

while I translated it with `その` as "that":

> You'd better get someone to do part of **that** job for you.

When `その` is translated as "the," will it be ignoring some part of it's
meaning?

Furthermore, if `その` is deleted as:

> 仕事の一部を誰かにやってもらったほうがいい。

would it be ungrammatical? By intending `仕事` to mean "job/work in general" as
opposed to specifically "that job/work," would the meaning become too vague to
be adequately comprehensible?




There are definitely cases where it doesn't make sense to translate その into an
English demonstrative adjective.

> アインシュタインとその人生 Einstein and his life ('his', I guess, is a possesive pronoun)
>
> まあ、その、なんていうか... Well, oh, you know... (filler word)

Another thing to point out: Japanese speakers tend to use personal pronouns
(including possesive pronouns) less than English speakers. Sometimes Japanese
speakers might use その in cases where 'your' might be more natural in English.

> そのケータイ、いいねぇ Your cell phone is cool!

If you're really asking whether, when translating to English, その should often
be translated to the article 'the' instead of 'that', then I would say
_usually_ no. If there's a need to specify which object is referred in
Japanese, there's a good chance the need is there in English as well. But
then, it really depends on the situation and context, so it's hard to give
exact rules.

> 仕事の一部を誰かにやってもらったほうがいい

is gramatically fine per se, just as the job/that job/your job all work in the
English version. But その仕事 sounds more like 'the task you're working on right
now', where just 仕事 _could_ be taken as 'your job' (i.e. your position).
Again, hard to say exactly without more context.




There are definitely cases where it doesn't make sense to translate その into an
English demonstrative adjective.

> アインシュタインとその人生 Einstein and his life ('his', I guess, is a possesive pronoun)
>
> まあ、その、なんていうか... Well, oh, you know... (filler word)

Another thing to point out: Japanese speakers tend to use personal pronouns
(including possesive pronouns) less than English speakers. Sometimes Japanese
speakers might use その in cases where 'your' might be more natural in English.

> そのケータイ、いいねぇ Your cell phone is cool!

If you're really asking whether, when translating to English, その should often
be translated to the article 'the' instead of 'that', then I would say
_usually_ no. If there's a need to specify which object is referred in
Japanese, there's a good chance the need is there in English as well. But
then, it really depends on the situation and context, so it's hard to give
exact rules.

> 仕事の一部を誰かにやってもらったほうがいい

is gramatically fine per se, just as the job/that job/your job all work in the
English version. But その仕事 sounds more like 'the task you're working on right
now', where just 仕事 _could_ be taken as 'your job' (i.e. your position).
Again, hard to say exactly without more context.

