English Translation
Paris is the most beautiful city in the world.
Is 街 the most appropriate kanji for まち in this case? I thought 町 would be the right one. Or I would have used 都市, since feels reductive for Paris.
@mike-lima
I don’t use 町 in this context. Both 街 and 都市 work, but I personally prefer 街.
町（まち）means “a local administrative unit”, and it mainly refers to “a residential area” or “a local community”. On the other hand, 街（まち）is closer to “downtown” in English. 街 gives us an image of high buildings, amusement facilities, and dynamic commerce.
So, if the sentence were “this is a beautiful small country town”, 町 is the right one. But Paris isn’t.
You can replace 街 with 都市, but there are different nuances.
- パリ as 街 refers to the central city of Paris (not the whole Paris), and it reminds us of the magnet for tourists such as museums, high-end fashion brand tenants, lovely cafes etc. So, 街 somehow has a connotation of prosperity.
- パリ as 都市 refers to a large city, and it has a connotation of “large enough to have a political autonomy” and “industrial urbanism”. 都市 in a tourism context also has the same image of “prosperity”, but I feel パリ as 都市 covers geographically larger areas than パリ as 街.
I don’t personally think that Paris as a whole city is the most beautiful one in the world although the center of Paris attracts many tourists. That’s probably why I prefer 街 in order to narrow down the scope.
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