Japanese Language Stack Exchange
Japanese Language Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [ambiguity]

曖昧な表現. A situation where multiple interpretations are possible as a result of scarcity of information. Ambiguity can exist at the grammatical and lexical level, and is usually resolved through context.

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What is the difference between ちょっと and 少し?

Specifically for when they mean "a little". In what situations would they be used and are they completely interchangeable without any differences?
小太郎
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How to use　いかがですか？

So I've read that いかがですか means "How about it?" and "How is it?". So if I wanted to say, "How's the coffee?" would it be コーヒーはどうですか？　or 　コーヒーはいかがですか？ Also is there an "informal" way of saying いかがです?
dotnetN00b
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"Seemingly cute" - かわいい + 〜そう

The 〜そう form means "seemingly 〜" and is usually conjecture made based on first-hand information. This usually means seeing something or hearing about something and making a conjecture, e.g., おいしそう when seeing the food. (Presumably, first-hand…
istrasci
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Are Japanese modifiers "greedy", "anti-greedy", or do they mean whatever people choose them to mean?

(I'm a beginner. I just started learning Japanese about a month before I wrote this.) The Japanese Wikipedia article 飛べない鳥, which corresponds to the English Wikipedia article Flightless bird, has the…
edom
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Would 私は怖い mean "I'm scared" or "I'm scary"?

Or does it mean both? If so, is there any way to explicitly distinguish between "I'm scared" and "I'm scary"? If it only means one and not the other, how would you say the other?
小太郎
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How to unambiguously express sentences with lots of relative propositions?

Background, problem statement Very often, I find myself in situations where I have to build structurally complex sentences in Japanese, and find myself struggling, trying to put all I want to say in a single sentence. As far as the other languages I…
Axioplase
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Is Facebook's use of double が grammatically unambiguous?

Facebook has issued me the following alert: Aさんが、Bさんがあなたとシェアした写真について「いいね！」と言っています I think this is a translation of "A likes the photo that B shared with you." Is it obvious what's being said? Why couldn't it be read as both A and B liking the…
Avery
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私に言われても versus 私が言われても

I am aware that "言われる" means "to be told". My impression would be that "私に言われても" means "Even if I told you..." while "私が言われても" means "Even if I am told...". But this site answer seems to suggest that another interpretation of "私に言われても" is "Even if I…
Denis Li
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自分 How to know what it means?

自分 can mean myself and yourself but, how do you know when the speaker is referring to him/herself or to you? As in, how could you know when the speaker is saying "myself" instead of "yourself" (to the listener)?
Yazuzu
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Misreading Japanese text due to bad kerning (rn→m, cl→d etc.)

Kerning In typography, kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. In English and other languages that use the Latin alphabet, certain characters placed…
siikamiika
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「星が見えない＝Stars can't be seen」 but 「目が見えない＝Eyes can't see」, why?

Are the two 「が」 different? Is 「目が見えない」 (at least in principle) ambiguous (eyes can't see / eyes can't be seen)?
null
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Scope of negation with 〜したくない

In English, we can distinguish between not wanting to do something, and wanting to not do something. It's not a distinction that we usually make, but it is possible: P = "do anything" A. "I want to not do anything." 　 WANT(NOT(P)) B. "I don't…
user1478
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庭 & Ambiguity of Yard or Garden?

I've been communicating back and forth with my host family in Japan. We recently talked about a picture that I sent involving my backyard and my host mom used the kanji 庭（にわ） which means garden or yard. My yard actually has a garden in it though. Is…
Sarah Szabo
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Ambiguous sentences when using の and に together

In the following sentence, the combination of の and に allows it to be interpreted in two ways: この巨大なネズミは他の地域に生息する固有種に比べれば小柄。 この巨大なネズミは（他の地域）に生息する固有種に比べれば小柄。 Compared to the endemic species in other regions, these huge rodents are small in size.…
Shurim
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Does “Tekken” sound like “iron sword” to someone unfamiliar with the franchise?

The word “ken” has at least 2 meanings: Ken (拳) means fist, while ken (剣) means sword. If a Japanese speaker hears about the video game Tekken (鉄拳, “iron fist”) for the first time, without seeing the word written down, would they be able to tell…
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