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The original was posted on /r/learnjapanese by /u/lifeofideas on 2024-04-08 02:08:51.

Advanced students will roll their eyes at the obviousness of this grammar point, but for beginners and intermediate students, the confusion caused by Japanese not only omitting subjects, but also switching implied subjects can be maddening.

Example sentence: 「たとえ台風が上陸しようが、仕事を休むわけには いかない。」

Translation: “Even if the typhoon arrives, there is no way I(←omitted subject) can miss work.”

This may seem easy, because typhoons don’t have jobs, so clearly it is not the typhoon missing work. Although we can’t be sure who is missing work without more context. Absent more context, it would be the speaker who cannot miss work. Not so hard, right?

But slightly change the sentence and the confusion sets in.

「鈴木さんの誕生日であっても、仕事を休むわけにはいかない。」

Translation: “Even if it is Mr. Suzuki’s birthday, there’s no way I (*or maybe HE?) can miss work.”

Or, if someone is talking to Mr. Suzuki, it might mean “Even if it is your birthday, you can’t just take the day off.”

This unclear subject is a common thing in Japanese, and sometimes the various phrases within a sentence can have different subjects. I am still uncertain how native Japanese speakers sort this out.