Sentence Help

[Edwin Black]

I've ran this sentence "ネコ好きだが猫に怖がられるのが悩み" through multiple translation sites such as Weblio, Translate, Systran, Google, and DeepL and all seem to comeback with a similar translation of "She loves cats, but she is afraid of them" or "She loves cats, but is afraid they will scare her". I'm aware that machine translations aren't very reliable (although DeepL has been pretty good when comes to translating Japanese and other languages), but the fact that all of them give a similar translation seems to indicate that it is correct.

But the reason for some of my doubt is how someone can like an animal, but still be afraid of it? The animal in question being a cat.

 

[kzel]

A more accurate translation would be "She likes cats, but is troubled that cats are afraid of her". Pretty typical trait for characters liking cats, she wants to pet them but they just run away.

 

[Edwin Black]

A more accurate translation would be "She likes cats, but is troubled that cats are afraid of her". Pretty typical trait for characters liking cats, she wants to pet them but they just run away.

What got left out of the original sentence from the mentioned translation sites that made it "She loves cats, but she is afraid of them" instead of "She likes cats, but is troubled that cats are afraid of her"? I know I said that machine translation aren't very reliable (hence why I run sentences through multiple sites) and when I do find one that seems to be very reliable like DeepL (although it does have some trouble with names for places, schools, and words made up for the world the story takes place in) there still seems to be some hiccups with it.

 

[kzel]

What got left out of the original sentence from the mentioned translation sites that made it "She loves cats, but she is afraid of them" instead of "She likes cats, but is troubled that cats are afraid of her"?

I assume the translation site had trouble differentiating between the direct and indirect passive form that に~られる can both express. Here it's the indirect form, while in the direct form subject and object are switched up turning "cats are scared by her" into "she is scared by cats" which is what translation sites have given you. My Japanese grammar is very rusty so I'll just link you to this site that seems right and explains it much better than me.

EDIT: or it could be that they just failed identifying passive altogether, since られる can also be used to express potential and other things. In this case it turns "cats are scared by her" into "cats are scaring her".

 

[Edwin Black]

I assume the translation site had trouble differentiating between the direct and indirect passive form that に~られる can both express. Here it's the indirect form, while in the direct form subject and object are switched up turning "cats are scared by her" into "she is scared by cats" which is what translation sites have given you. My Japanese grammar is very rusty so I'll just link you to this site that seems right and explains it much better than me.

EDIT: or it could be that they just failed identifying passive altogether, since られる can also be used to express potential and other things. In this case it turns "cats are scared by her" into "cats are scaring her".

Thank you for your help. Despite their progress it still seems like some translation sites have ways to go in order to recognize the complexities of other languages. I did go back to DeepL and one of the things I like about the site is that you can change part of the sentence if it doesn't sound right to you. For instance going back to the sentence in question, by clicking on "she's" I was able to get alternate translations and was able to change it from "She loves cats, but she's afraid of them" to "She loves cats, but she worries that they are afraid of her".

I also want to apologize for relying to much on machine translations if I ask more questions in the future. I know that reading up on how Japanese sentences are structed can help with learning the language, but I feel as though I would benefit more from an actual class with actual hands on learning as that in the past has seemed to help me in regards to other subjects and when it comes to work. Also I live in an area that doesn't really offer a diversity of languages to learn and if it did I probably wouldn't be able to afford it if it was being taught at my local community college.