>夫知なことが多くて不安な部分もある
I’m confused about the use of 不安な in this sentence. By context I get this person is saying there are things he’s uneasy about. Can this adjective be used to call something “anxiety inducing” instead of calling someone anxious? Or perhaps he’s saying there are parts of himself that are anxious?
4 comments
There are part of the thing that he’s unsure of.
>~~夫知な~~ことが多くて
there being a lot of unknowns,
>不安な部分もある
anxious/unsettling parts also exist
UPDATE: this is probably a typo, 夫知な isn’t a word from what i can tell, only [未知の](https://www.japandict.com/%E6%9C%AA%E7%9F%A5)
In general it is better to think of most nouns in Japanese as translations of ideas not sentences.
Fuan exists can be is simply saying doubts exist; but that’s a translation no one would ever give because that’s not an English sentence.
In English we say we have doubts.
You are being led in to confusion by the fact that natural translations are never literal translations.
TO make this clear think about how talk about safety and feeling safe in English with different words. However in Japanese 安全 is used as both the translation of both safety and safe.
In general we make English sentence center on the subject to the point that we even have imaginary subject in sentences (**There** is a book on the table, **It** is raining). Japanese centers the sentence on an idea of action/being (verbs and -i adjective sentences) or just ideas (Noun+copula, noun+aru sentences).
We get tricked into thinking in the patterns of sentences in both languages. Japanese think there is no need to add a subject, and that leaves us often looking for one; We slavishly put them into every sentence and Japanese people wonder what it is that is raining.
The Japanese sentence is fundamentally “Doubts exist” with some tacked on reasons why. We have to translate radically away from that locution to make it proper English, but the idea is simple: Doubts exist.
This is simply how Japanese adjectives, or rather attributive clauses work in general.
“不安な人” will typically mean “anxious person”, but “不安なこと” will typically mean “something some person is anxious about”
As to why, because “不安なこと” is actually short for “<worrier>が不安なこと” in practice or something similar. That’s how Japanese adjectives and attributive forms work. “食べる人” typically means “person who eats” but “食べる理由” will rarely mean “reason that eats” because reasons don’t really eat, so it’s taken to be short for “<eater>が食べる理由” or something similar as in “the reason I eat”
So here “不安な部分” does not mean “the part that is anxious.”; it’s taken to be short for “私が不安な部分”, as in “the part I’m anxious about,”
Parts aren’t really worried themselves, so it’s not ambiguous. But I can remember this one time where I encountered “愛人だった男” and was kind of confused, thinking it meant “The man who was a mistress”, but then it hit me that it meant “the man whose mistress I was.” and that it was short for “私が愛人だった男”, which suddenly made sense in context.
Basically, Japanese attributive clauses don’t in any way tell you what part of the sentence the noun after them “links into”; this is resolved from context and the fact that any part that is already in the attributive clause can’t be linked into. So “食べるレストラン” is ambiguous in theory, but in practice restaurants are places where one eats, not things that eat or are eaten, so it’s obvious what it is, but to be extra clear we can say “私が食事を食べるレストラン” to make it absolutely clear it’s not the thing that’s eating or being eaten.
In the case of “不安な部分”; “部分” does not relate to the subject of the sentence as “不安な人” generally would.