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I have a question regarding this sentence:
一人 じゃありませんでした
I’m still in the middle of Season II, and I’ve run into this sentence in the middle of working on past negative tense nouns. I originally thought it translated to “It was not one person.”, but when I opened the Anki deck and came across it, it showed it translated as “(I) was not alone.”. I assume I didn’t study something I was supposed to, but I was curious as to which is correct? I originally thought when referring to one’s self, you would use a word such as “わたし”, but I know very little as far as that goes, so that’s why I’m here asking this question.
Any help would be very appreciated!
ありがと ございます!Whenever someone tells you the sky is the limit, aim for beyond and shatter the sky.一人 can mean “one person” and it can mean “alone”.
Both translations are correct. It’s just a matter of context. The person or thing the sentence is referring to is often dropped if it is obvious who (or what).Japanese is big on dropping stuff that’s implied by the context. It’s one reason Google Translate really struggles with it. If “I” is the subject, it’s especially likely to be dropped, because constantly going “I did this, I did that” makes you look a bit arrogant to a Japanese-speaker.
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