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I was thinking of giving an answer to [this
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/57636/is-%E3%82%88%E3%81%8F%E3%81%98%E3%82%83%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84-correct-
for-not-often), but then I remembered that my Japanese is rubbish.

I was going to give an example:

> ケーキはあまり食べない

Then I started having doubts about whether this would mean "I don't often eat
cake" or "I don't eat much cake", i.e. "When I eat cake, I only eat a small
slice".

Without context, can the sentence have both of these interpretations?
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2018-03-31T10:51:40.273
57640
2018-04-01T08:25:52.390
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question
grammar ambiguity
Ambiguity with あまり
Yes. We judge it by context as you knew. If you want to make sure that you
mean "I only eat a small slice", you can say "ケーキは少ししか食べない".

I interpret ケーキはあまり食べない as "I don't often eat cake", because I feel it says
"one's preference" or "custom".

For example, あまり旅行しない would mean "I don't often go on a trip.", 今日はあまり酒を飲まなかった
would mean "I didn't drink much today" rather than "I didn't often drink
today".
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-31T16:15:51.240
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2018-04-01T08:25:52.390
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answer