convince vs 説得(せっとく)する

みなさん、こんにちは！

I will write about a grammar today.

Some days ago, my student and I found out “説得(せっとく)する” does not mean "convince/persuade” which is a translation in a Japanese-English dictionary.


For example, if someone said he would not go to a party and ｢彼を説得する｣ is “try hard to tell him to go to the party giving him reasons or consequences” but it does not say to make him change his thoughts to go, i.e. we still do not know if he would go or not.


In my lesson, my advanced level student was not sure making an example sentence using ｢説得する｣ and I didn’t understand why because in the textbook its English meaning was given.
But we talked about the both 「説得する」 and “convince” then finally we came across there is a big difference between them as above.
It sure is confusing and difficult.


There is one more interesting topic related to the word “convince”.
In English they say “He is convincing”.
“Convincing” is an adjective which expresses about him how he is like, similar to “he is tall” or “he is kind”, for example.

On the contrary there is no adjective in Japanese expresses “convincing”.
「説得力のあるNoun」is used instead.
「彼は説得力のある人だ」is used for “He is convincing” in Japanese which literal meaning is “He has a power to convince.”