母親がたまたま美しいからと言って、必ずしもその娘が成長して美人になると言う事にはならない。

Sentence Discussions Japanese
#1
English Translation

Just because a mother happens to be beautiful it does not necessarily follow that her daughter will grow up to be the same.

Where in this sentence is “it not necessarily follow” communicated? I’m guessing it is contained in …にはならない, but I feel if it were (…になる)とは限らない or (…になる)というわけでもない would communicate the “not necessarily” better.

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#2

I think the 必ずしも part means “not necessarily”.

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#3

@ericaw @mike-lima
Before taking your grammar question, let me tell you that the original Japanese sentence is very robotic and redundant. My alternative translations are:

美人の娘が同じく美人になるとは限らない。（びじんのむずめがおなじくびじんになるとはかぎらない）

美人の娘が必ずしも美人になるとは限らない。（replaced 同じく with 必ずしも）

“Just because a mother happens to be beautiful” is a typical English way, but the word-for-word translation doesn’t work in Japanese. 美人の娘 means “a daughter who has a beautiful mother”. That’s more concise and natural.

必ずしも～とは限らない is a better collocation than 必ずしも～にはならない in the original sentence. It’s a set phrase.

  • 必ず = always
  • 限る = to limit X to Y
  • → 必ずしも～とは限らない = X isn’t always resulted in Y = it doesn’t necessarily…

I personally prefer 同じく～とは限らない over 必ずしも～とは限らない because of the nuance of “follow” (inherit).

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