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There is a dialogue as follows,

> A: 日本に来て、驚いたことは何ですか。What struck you when you arrived in Japan?
>
> B: ゴミが落ちていない。The trash is not falling down.

I am confused in translating ゴミが落ちていない。. My attempt is "The trash is not
falling down" but it seems to be "funny" or "weird".

What is the correct translation?
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2016-06-04T09:50:02.580
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question
meaning aspect
What does ゴミが落ちていない mean when replying the question 日本に来て、驚いたことは何ですか?
ゴミが落ちている here does not mean "trash is falling" (continuous action) but it
refers to the state after the trash has fallen to the ground.

See: [When is Vている the continuation of action and when is it the continuation
of state?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/3122/5010)

As you know, 落ちる is usually an instant action. So ゴミが落ちていない essentially means
the town is clean. Depending on the context, 落ちている may refer to a progressive
action (e.g., "the airplane is now falling"), but that should be far less
common.

And there is another problem in this dialog. When you are asked a question
like this ("What is ...?"), the answer should be in the noun form. The easiest
way to do it is to nominalize the verb using
[こと](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/1396/5010). B's answer should have
been:

> B: ゴミが落ちていない **ことです** 。
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2016-06-04T10:12:28.640
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answer
**_State vs. Action in Progress_**

If a Japanese-speaker said:

> 「Aさんは[結婚]{けっこん}して **います** / **いる** 。」,

that would mean "A is married." It does **_not_** mean "A is in the middle of
getting married." or "A is in the middle of his/her wedding."

Person A got married (some time) ago and **_s/he is still married_**. That is
the meaning of the sentence. It is a statement of a state/situation, and not
of an on-going action.

The same goes for:

> 「ゴミが[落]{お}ちていない。」

This sentence is about a state, and not about an action in progress. It only
takes a fraction of a second for trash to fall from your hand, for instance,
to the ground. A sentence describing that action/phenomenon would be pretty
useless unless one was discussing physics or something.

In the context of a foreigner's first impression of Japan, what is important
and what actually matters is whether the streets are clean or full of litter.

ゴミが落ちる ⇒ No one does anything about it ⇒ ゴミが **落ちている**

ゴミが落ちる ⇒ Someone sweeps the street or no one litters in the first place ⇒ ゴミが
**落ちていない**

> 「ゴミが落ちていない。」, threfore, means "There is no litter (to be found) on the
> streets."

It is not very practical to use the word "to fall" in the TL if the TL is to
sound natural.
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answer