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My friend and I were having a debate.

Basically, the line 「あんたは一人でこの家から学校に通っている。」 in an anime was translated as "And
you live here alone, attending school."

A direct literal translation of the Japanese seems to give a different English
sentence. However, my question is: XからYに通っている the normal way of saying "(You)
attend Y"? He seems thinks that saying "You go back and forth from home to
school" is a weird, if not too wordy, way to say "attending school".

**(Added after Chris' answer:)**

I'm providing the whole response from the character in the anime (for
context).

ゆうむら家の３人は、半年前にこの家を購入し、転居してきた。間もなくあんたの両親はアメリカに赴任し、あんたは一人でこの家から学校に通っている。

The subtitled translation:

The Yuumura family of three bought this house half a year ago and moved in.
Soon after, your parents went to America to their new job posts. And you live
here alone, attending school.
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grammar learning
Is this the correct way of saying attending a school?
First of all, note that _attend_ is not equivalent to _enroll._ A quick Google
search on "define: attend" reveals the following meanings (emphasis mine).

  1. Be present at (an event, meeting, or function).
  2. **Go regularly to** : "all children are required to attend school".

"Attend" emphasizes the act of _going somewhere regularly_ , as does 通{かよ}う.
In other words, I would say that **X大学に`通{かよ}`っている normally means "I _commute_
to university X"** (which is in line with the definition of "attend" above)
and **X大学の学生です is the correct way of saying "I am a student at university
X."**

## Further Information

Let's break down the sentence 「あんたは一人でこの家から学校に通っている」.

  1. Without context, I would probably translate it as "You are commuting to school from this house by yourself."
  2. Assuming that you're using the verb `通{かよ}う` instead of `通{とお}る`—which is usually used to mean "passing through"—I think that this sentence is emphasizing the act of _going_ to school rather than the act of being _enrolled_ in school.

As stated above, if you want to emphasize the fact that you're _enrolled_ at
university X, I would use a phrase like "X大学の学生です." If you want to emphasize
the fact that you're _commuting_ there every day, I would say "X大学に通っています." In
either case, あなたは, 一人で, and この家から are all superfluous and can generally be
implied from context.

Now that you've made it clear that this line comes from an anime and is not
intended to be a stand-alone statement, the sentence (and superfluous
information) makes a bit more sense. Remember, **Japanese is an extremely
contextual language** and the proper translation will often require a few
sentences of context. In this case, the sentence is emphasizing

  * the change in topic from the Yomura family to "you" through the use of あんた (which additionally hints that the speaker is a woman)
  * that "you" are commuting to school _alone_ even though other people don't (not enough context to say who "you" are being compared with in this case)
  * that "you" are commuting from _this house_ instead of another one (again, not enough context to say precisely which other houses "your" house is being compared with, but presumably the fact that it's _your_ house is important)

Note that all of this information is added for emphasis but in a normal
conversation would not be strictly necessary.
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