1

Before I begin, this post is unrelated, despite the similar title.

Here was the question:

My father and mother both are English teachers.

  1. 父と母は英語の先生です。

  2. 父も母も英語の先生です。

  3. 父も母も英語先生です。

I looked at each of the sentences and interpreted that

  • 父 = ちち = father;

  • 母 = はは = mother;

  • 英語 = えいご = English; and

  • 先生 = せんせい = teacher.

Therefore, Sentence 3 is incorrect because it is missing the particle の.

Now I also thought that

も = mo = also.

Thus, Sentence 2 is incorrect because there is no "also" in the italic sentence.

So I circled Sentence 1 but I got the answer incorrect. Why so? What was the correct answer, and what does も mean when it appears twice in one sentence? Does the meaning change, or remain the same?

ありがとうございます。
Thank you in advance.

Community
  • 1
Mr Pie
  • 253
  • 3
  • 16
  • 1
    Does the first sentence really say 父と母わ? – Leebo Jul 23 '18 at 03:25
  • @Leebo no, that was just a typo on my part. Thank you for picking that up :) ..... **Edit:** Looking back at what I typed, I fixed all errors. – Mr Pie Jul 23 '18 at 03:26
  • 1
    Incidentally, if you could change the title of your question to something that is more helpful, search-wise, it would be better... "why is this answer wrong" type titles are too vague. You could say something like "I don't understand why と is not correct when trying to say "both" – ericfromabeno Jul 23 '18 at 03:39
  • @ericfromabeno Okay. Thank you for that, as well. I will change the title; I hope it is better after I change it. – Mr Pie Jul 23 '18 at 03:43
  • 1
    yeah, titles/topics like "what is wrong" or "what does this mean" are common, unfortunately, because people forget when making them that their main purpose is to be searchable and therefor titles should be specific if possible. Thanks for the edit. – ericfromabeno Jul 23 '18 at 03:47
  • @Chocolate thanks for finding the other duplicate posts :) ..... **Edit:** Should I include the `auxiliaries` tag in similar future questions? – Mr Pie Jul 23 '18 at 04:04
  • 2
    similar future questions がどんなのかわかんないですけど、「も」も「と」も auxiliary じゃなくて particle なので、auxiliaries のタグは要らないと思います。 – Chocolate Jul 23 '18 at 14:26

1 Answers1

2

the key is 父も母も

XもYも is the Japanese way of expressing the idea of "both X and Y"

ericfromabeno
  • 4,263
  • 1
  • 9
  • 21