English Translation
Your father’s supporters are not limited to his friends.
Could this sentence also mean, “Your father’s friends are not necessarily his supporters”?
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@ericaw
Good catch! The original Japanese sentence only means “Your father’s friends are not necessarily his supporters” as you suggested.
“Your father’s supporters are not limited to his friends” should be 君の父に味方するのは友達だけではない。So, the original Japanese and English sentences don’t match at all.
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Thanks for the helpful translation, MsFixer! For “Your father’s supporters are not limited to his friends,” could 「君の父の味方は父の友達だけだと限らない」 also work? (Is it grammatical + natural-sounding?)
Your alternative sentence is grammatically understandable, but sounds a bit awkward because you repeated “父” twice in the same sentence. Also, ～だけだと限らない should be replaced with ～だけ「とは」限らない – Just memorize this as a set phrase.
To avoid the redundancy, I would suggest you
友達だけが君の父の味方とは限らない。
Hope this helps!
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