A: Excuse me, should I ask Mr Yamada about this task?
B: You can ask him a few questions, but I don’t think he knows much about it.
A: I see. What about Mr Ueda?
B: Good idea! He’s the right person to ask.
In this situation, what should you say ‘you can ask him a few questions, but…’ in Japanese?
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B：聞いてみてもいいけど、あまり詳しくないかも。
Note: This is not a word-for-word translation.
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A word-for-word translation
B：いくつか質問してもいいですが、あまり詳しくないと思います。
That sounds a bit strange in Japanese.
In situations where you don’t think it’s a good idea, but there might be a chance, we usually use an expression like ‘you can try asking him if you like’.
This sentence can be translated as 聞いてみてもいいけど.
In this example, the person you are asking is him, but if you are the person being asked, you can say something like the following:
聞いてくれてもいいけど
聞いてくれても構わないけど
一応聞くけど
If you think he might know more and you think it’s a good idea to ask him, you can say 聞いてみるといいよ.
This implies the nuance of recommendation.
