Breakdown of sono hutago ha kao dake de naku, koe mo yoku nite imasu.
Questions & Answers about sono hutago ha kao dake de naku, koe mo yoku nite imasu.
What does その双子 mean here? Is it that, those, or the twins?
Why doesn’t 双子 have a plural ending?
What is the role of は after 双子?
How does 顔だけでなく、声も work?
Why is there no particle after 顔?
In patterns like Nだけでなく, it is very common for the noun to come directly before だけ with no extra particle.
So 顔だけでなく is a natural way to say not only the face / not only in appearance.
If a particle were added, the nuance or phrasing would shift a little, but the version here is completely standard and natural.
Why doesn’t the sentence say their faces or their voices explicitly?
Does 顔 here mean the literal face, or something more like looks?
What does よく mean here? Doesn’t it usually mean often?
Yes, よく can mean often, but here it does not.
With 似ている, よく usually means something like:
- closely
- very much
- quite a lot
So よく似ています means resemble each other closely or are very similar. It is not talking about frequency.
Why is it 似ています instead of 似ます?
The usual way to say that things or people resemble each other is 似ている. This describes a current state of similarity.
So:
- 似ている = be resembling / be similar
- 似ています = polite form of 似ている
似ます exists, but when talking about how people look or sound alike, 似ています is much more natural.
Similar to whom? Shouldn’t there be a に phrase somewhere?
Normally, yes. A full pattern is:
AはBに似ている = A resembles B
But here, B is omitted because it is obvious. Since the topic is the twins, the natural meaning is that the twins resemble each other.
Japanese often leaves out information that the listener can easily infer, so there is no need to spell out each other or add another noun after に in this sentence.
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