Why is 両者 “Both people” and not “Both persons”?
Is it an English language rule?
I am here to learn Japanese (kanji, vocabulary), not English
“Both people” and not “Both persons” means the same for me! and even the google translator confirms my point.
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You can always add a synonym if you prefer to give an answer that is different from the provided options. In many cases, there are quite a bunch of synonyms for a given Japanese word, and WK can’t possibly cover them all…
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It is an English language thing - The most commonly used plural for ‘person’ is ‘people’. As a native speaker, writing ‘both persons’ sounds odd for daily speech - mainly it sounds like something I’d read in a legal document, but not something that I would say - I feel there is a nuance that makes ‘both persons’ mean something a bit different from ‘both people’, but can’t quite put my finger on it. It would never occur to me to include ‘both persons’ as a synonym if I was entering synonyms because it’s not a natural sounding English phrase.
For the purpose of learning the Japanese, definitely put in a user synonym if that’s easier to remember.
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“Persons” is somewhat different. Persons kind of refers to each of the people as more of an individual than what both people imply. That’s why you’d mainly see it in a contract or something, because it’s a very specific and limited use.
That being said, you’re not here to learn English, so just add both persons as a synonym, and about google translate, it’s very difficult to translate concepts over, so that’s why it seems like they are exactly the same in meaning, but it is a slight difference. Not something you have to worry about, as long as you understand the concept of 両者 you will be fine
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I’m not quite sure what the nuance of 両者 is, but for instance Jisho agrees with you:
There is a similar word 両方 which in some contexts can mean “both parties”, so perhaps both have more formal uses?
The more common expression for 2 people I’ve seen was 二人 (f.e. あの二人（は）).
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From the Merriam Webster site persons should be correct although people is now the accepted common usage.
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There is a difference between “people” and “persons”. Persons imply two individual persons. “People” could imply two completely different people with different culture and imply that there is more than one of each. Two persons is fairly straight forward. Two people is not, it could mean american and indian people, hopefully more than one of each, since we’re most likely talking about groups.
Atleast thats what I think is the difference.
I think that would be “peoples”, not “people”. To me, “two people” or “both people” are unambiguously about two individuals, and says nothing about their culture or anything else like that.
@HRodi:
In any case, I agree with Nishi that it’s an issue of formality. You will generally not hear “persons” in day to day speech. It’s much more likely to appear in formal documents like contracts. In day to day speech you should use “people”.
I don’t think it’s a big deal to add “two persons” as a synonym though since you’re here to learn the Japanese anyway. Besides, I don’t know how the Japanese word tends to be used. Maybe the more formal wording is perfectly reasonable. I can’t really say myself.
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You’re just wrong.
" people
/ˈpiːp(ə)l/
See definitions in:
all
law
grammar
religion
noun
plural noun: people ; noun: people ; plural noun: peoples ; noun: one’s people ; plural noun: one’s peoples
human beings in general or considered collectively.
“the earthquake killed 30,000 people”"
How does what you posted make me wrong? I see nothing refuting what I said.
By my definition of “people”, this sentence means 30,000 individuals were killed. By your definition, it would mean individuals from 30,000 different cultures were killed, which makes no sense.
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It’s less of a rule and more of a difference in nuance. For the purposes of learning Japanese, add a synonym.
IME, for things like contracts and legal documents, it’s used for clarity in order to indicate that even though we are referencing a group, each person is to be treated individually for the purposes of the document. Usually it’s because in those cases, the treatment of a group or a class of people is different enough that it needs to be noted and often has different implications.
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I agree with you. Don’t know why this discussion has turned to be about which version is the casual one and which is the formal one. It doesn’t matter. “Two persons” is correct, and should be added to the synonyms. The formality has no relevance here.
Since when is WK only for daily speech?
Yes, why is specific and limited use banned from WK?
So it’s not wrong, is it?
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Totally agree - it’s not that ‘both persons’ is wrong.
I was mainly trying to clarify why it might not be listed on the ‘allowed’ list - from a native English perspective, it wouldn’t be a common/expected synonym, so the WaniKani team might not have added it - there are often other translation options for a given Japanese word that the community ends up needing to ask to add to the allow list because they’re less common and/or weren’t considered a ‘main’ meaning/reading when the item was added.
As far as I can tell, the Japanese word doesn’t carry the same more specific nuance, so ‘both persons’ would not necessarily be the main/first meaning (but my Japanese is pretty bad, so I could be wrong).
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It’s not wrong, as I said in my original post. But the nuance of the English translation can matter if you’re trying to understand the nuance of the Japanese word (not that I understand the nuance of the Japanese word myself in this case). It’s similar to how you wouldn’t want to translate a formal Japanese medical term into the colloquial English word, if possible. It’s not always possible to keep the nuance in translation, but if you can you probably should. We were all mentioning the nuance of “people” versus “persons” so the OP was aware. That’s all.
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its not banned, you can easily make it a synonym, OP just wanted to know why it isn’t a synonym already
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