I just go this wrong in my reviews because the meaning changed since the last time it came up for me. So I started looking it up on other sources because it seemed weird that a meaning could change so much.
I could not find it on English websites, but all the example sentences on Wanikani use it as an adjective rather than a verb. All the instances I find in Google are also adjectives, which leads me to believe the definition and classification are both wrong.
Can anyone point me to examples of this being used as a verb?
They don’t, it’s just that English expresses the same thing with an adjective rather than a verb. Translations don’t always neatly follow the exact same grammatical structure as the original sentence, languages just don’t neatly line up that way.
You could translate 対向するバイク as “a motorcycle that is oncoming” but that’s not how you’d say that in English. You’d just say “an oncoming motorcycle”. But regardless of how you translate it, 対向する is a verb. The grammatical structure of a Japanese sentence is not defined by its English translation.
I see, so it’s Japanese grammar I haven’t learned yet. Okay, what about the definition of the verb? The most common translation seems to be: to oppose. Why did Wanikani change it, and no longer accept the original meaning as a valid answer? Is it because the verb is most commonly used for incoming traffic?
You’re correct in noting that 対向する is often used in a way that functions adjectivally, particularly in phrases like 対向する車 (incoming or oncoming car). While 対向する is technically a verb, it can modify nouns in a manner similar to an adjective in English. This usage is quite common in Japanese and can sometimes blur the lines between parts of speech as understood in English grammar.
In Japanese, verbs in their plain form (dictionary form) can directly modify nouns, effectively functioning like adjectives. This is similar to how English might use a participle to describe a noun (e.g., “running water” or “incoming traffic”). So, in the phrase 対向する車, 対向する is acting adjectivally to describe the car.
However, as a standalone entity, 対向する remains a verb and means “to oppose” or “to face each other.” The verb’s usage in sentences might not be as common as its adjectival use in modifying nouns, but it does not change its fundamental classification as a verb.
By definition, do you mean the translation WaniKani gives you? I’m guessing it’s for clarity. If I saw “to oppose” without further context, I’d assume it was about being against a plan or idea, or being on the other side of a debate, but this verb is specifically about being in the opposite direction relative to something else and facing it - like oncoming traffic. It’s not specifically for oncoming traffic - two buildings across the street would also be 対向, but oncoming traffic may well be the most common usage.
Keep in mind there’s no singular correct translation for any given word. A word has a meaning it expresses (or more than one), and if you’re very lucky there’s a precisely equivalent word in another language, but the more removed a language is from the one you’re translating to, the less likely that is to happen. How you translate a word is more often than not very dependent on context and what precise meaning it has within that context.
There’s no specific grammar at play here beyond the fact that you can just plop basically any proposition before a noun in Japanese to turn it into some sort of adjectival/subordonate proposition.
飲んでいる → I’m drinking. 飲んでいる男 → the man who drinks/the drinking man.
対向する → to face/to be opposite/to be oncoming. 対向する車 → The car who is oncoming/the oncoming car.
At level 48 you should definitely consider investing more time in grammar study and just reading Japanese, you’ll encounter this type of construction in no time. At this point you have more than enough kanji in your arsenal to tackle basic and even intermediate Japanese content.
It’s always helpful to check out whether building a simple sentence using some other conjugated form will yield any results.
So you take the dictionary form, and change it from let’s say 対向する to 対向した (past tense) put it in a search box and get 「対向した(たいこうした)」の意味や使い方 わかりやすく解説 Weblio辞書
In this case it could be a car but it could also be a person. It depends on the context.
That weblio page says it is auto-generated by mechanically conjugating verbs according to their pattern and it might therefore have forms that aren’t appropriate. So it isn’t useful evidence for whether 対向した is something people actually use. (In this case other google search results confirm that you can say that. There seem to be a lot of hits in patents that talk about “two opposed faces/blades/whatever” of some machine or mechanism.)
I haven’t used it, so I don’t have a firm opinion. A little googling around suggests that its translations are AI/machine generated, so at minimum the usual note of caution about machine translations would apply there; and trying with a simpler verb there are some duff/odd translations lurking, like
その通りだ フィルはいつも酔っぱらい運転だ – True. Don’t forget, Phil was always our designated drunk driver.
(the English line appears to be a quote from a movie – the Japanese out of context definitely doesn’t capture the same meaning. Was it the actual translation of the line in the Japanese dub/sub of the movie, or a machine translation from the English?)
or
車の運転はとても楽しいです – Operation of the car is pleasant very, is
(English side weirdly mangled given how simple the Japanese side is.)
As a summary of common contexts it might be OK, it depends on where they get their texts; but the above film quote leaves me wondering if the Japanese side is really all human texts or if sometimes it is machine translation from an English original. The examples for 対向した all look like extracts from patents, but then so do most of the google search results.
