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I was attempting to translate "Why am I not a fish with legs?" into Japanese,
and the Japanese speakers I asked said they couldn't find a way to get it to
sound natural. (Of course, this question is very frivolous, so said speakers
are close friends and not professional translators or the like.)

The informal version I was given is 「何で足がある魚じゃないの」, and the formal version
「どうして足がある魚じゃないんですか」, yet I was told that neither of these really sound
natural.

Is it true that a thought like this is hard to express in Japanese? If so, why
is that?
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2021-09-30T20:12:50.913
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2021-09-30T20:40:00.483
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english-to-japanese
Why is it difficult to say "Why am I not a [noun]?"
I personally don't think that's hard to express. While it may sound strange
(Where can we find a fish with legs?), I think appropriate translation would
be:

  * なぜ(なんで/どうして)私は足がある魚じゃないんですか？

Your translation is completely missing **am I**. That's the only error I could
find of.

Maybe your friend's idea of "natural" and your idea of "natural" have a
different meanings; In the sense of "this can only be a weird sentence no
matter how I translate it,"(As I said above, there's no fish with legs in real
life... or is there?) and in the sense of "this can't be sound natural no
matter how I translate it."
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2021-09-30T20:40:00.483
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2021-09-30T20:40:00.483
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answer