Hello, first time posting here. I’m an almost intermediate learner (currenty studying N3 grammar and kanji), and I just realized I’ve never learned a specific grammar to make impersonal statements.
I had to translate into Japanese these sentences that express something as if it could happen (or does happen) to anyone:
* Whenever you get sick, you get a call from work.
* One gets used to anything.
So it entered my mind that I didn’t really know a direct way of expressing in Japanese these general “you” and “one”, since Japanese doesn’t really like using pronouns most of the time.
In the end, I came up with these translations:
* 病気になるときはいつも仕事の電話が掛かるよ。
* 何にでも慣れることもあり得る。
But my question is, is there a specific grammar construction in Japanese for expressing general statements or a more natural way to do it? Do you rely on context to determine whether a statement is general or talking about a specific person?
Sorry if there’s some lousy English grammar there. English is not my mother language.
Also, if I broke any rule from the sub, feel free to delete this post.
6 comments
No pronoun is used when it’s a general statement. For personal statements you would just add a pronoun although context also need to be taken into consideration
If you absolutely need a subject to refer to people in general, 人 or 人々 will do.
would the と construction work? it’s basically like a conditional statement that says (if A happens) then (B has to follow)
[https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-grammar/how-conditionals-work/](https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-grammar/how-conditionals-work/)
first section here ^
病気になると会社から電話がかかってくる。
誰もが何事にも慣れることができる。
For the first sentence I think the passive is useful, 病気になるなら仕事から連絡されますthough it might sound a bit strict.
For the second one, I would use the potential to give it a less assertive tone 誰でも何でもに慣れられます.
The passive voice is used all the time to absolve anyone of responsibility of something, or to imply that it sort of just… happened. It’s indirect and considered more polite. Also the phrase ~ ことにな/するand other similar phrases are rather impersonal and are used a lot to express how or why something is the way it is.