Do you find Japanese to be ambiguous?

Hi all! I've been studying Japanese for 4 years, 2 years in university and the following two years in self study. I'm wondering if other Japanese learners find or have found Japanese to be ambiguous in nature? An example I'll use is my favorite anime name "Tonari no kaibutsu kun". If you break down the sentence literally you have neighbor, or something beside you "tonari" the possessive "no" and then monster "kaibutsu kun". However, the translation usually is "The monster sitting beside me" yet the verb "to sit" is no where in the title.

This is what I mean. Often I find that the raw Japanese and the English translation usually are a far cry apart, making me wonder if there is in general a lot of room for interpretation when working with Japanese.

Opinions, thoughts?

This is just a "translator" adding additional information when there wasn't any reason to do so. There is nothing in the Japanese title implying "sit".

No, that is not inherent in the language. As the vocabulary definition is different from one language to another, those variations in translation are usual.

That phrase might be translated into something like: the monster next to me, the monster living next door, my neighbor, monster, etc. the friendly meaning added by -kun in Japanese gets lost in the English, so translators would try to add the somewhat humorous/friendly tone into the English as well. Adding "sitting" immediately takes away the fear that might normally be associated with the word "monster."

People might have different thoughts, but it is indeed a fact that the Japanese often did and still do consider their culture to be ambiguous. This is not only about language, but the culture in general. And language is always a reflection of the culture that speaks it.

Examples typically discussed are;

"Kawazu tobikomu ike no oto." This is a famous haiku that researchers often insist that you can't tell whether if the frog that jumps into the pond is pulural or singular.

Junichiro Tanizaki. He has written a famous essay called "In-ei-rai-san" which is all about the ambiguousness of the Japanese culture, all from shapes to colors.

As a Japanese who majored in Japanese literature and now works as a translator, I can agree that there is indeed a lot of fuzziness in the language and culture. At least a lot of Japanese prefer to believe that they are a race that "feel" communication rather than to speak it.

But I can't really agree to every example. Even in the English language there are times that an expression can be interpreted in many ways. And you'd know that that frog is most likely singular, if you've dug deep enough into the whole Japan and haiku and wabi-sabi culture.

Also, American English is probably one of the most practical languages in the world, perhaps because the country is relatively new. On the other hand, British English (the real thing) can be a bit more ambiguous in many ways. So we can also say that old culture is ambiguous than the newer ones, and again language is quite attached to each culture.

MariNihon, if you've studied language as much as that, you might be interested in moving on to things like literature or philosophy. That's where all your question is supposed to be stretched out.

Most languages are ambiguous to a foreigner that only has a basic knowledge of them..It takes time to get the nuances of even simple expressions...if only because schools don't teach all sorts of idioms.

Non-English speaking persons, for example, will be told "I will call you later" and believe that later means "later that day", when it means sometime in the future..could be the following day or weeks later..or even never..

My French great grandma and her friends often used the word "enfin". It means at last, finally, but in truth has many meanings that one only guess from the tone of voice of the person that say it...

For example several persons will gossip about Mrs A. and 3 of them think she is a good person but the 4th one has heard that she is in fact very nasty but hide it well. The 3 can't believe it, the 4th say "enfin!" and this means no point arguing, she, the 4th one, will be nice to Ms A. just in case, but will not trust her at all.

A mother saying "enfin" to her child in a strong voice means "if you don't stop making this racket at once, no TV tonight".. but the next day the same mother will say "enfin" to means "you are a big boy, stop whining"