Tom is no more hardworking than Bill is.
Is the translation of this sentence kind of depend on context or should it only be taken in one of these two ways:
@TisYanni
You made a really good point!
Before addressing your argument, let me first say that the Japanese sentence itself sounds unnatural though it is understandable. 同じように is usually followed by a verb, not an adjective. This is another bad sentence imported from Tanaka Corpus…
Well, let’s evaluate the degree of one’s diligence on a 10-point scale.
Case 1: Tom = 8 and Bill = 9 (i.e. Both of them are hard workers, but Tom does not exceed Bill.)
ビルほどではないが、トムも勤勉だ。
Case 2: Tom = 8 and Bill = 7.5 to 8.5 (i.e. Both of them are hard workers, and they are almost on the same level.)
トムはビルと同じくらい勤勉だ。
ビル同様、トムも勤勉だ。
トムは勤勉で、ビルと甲乙つけがたい。(pron. こうおつつけがたい)
Case 3: Tom = 1 and Bill = 2 (i.e. Both of them are very lazy, but Bill is slightly better than Tom.)
ビルは勤勉さに欠くが、トムはさらに酷い。
Case 4: Tom = 2 and Bill = 1.5 to 2.5 (i.e. Both of them are very lazy and they are not so different by and large.)
トムもビルも勤勉さに欠くという意味では大差ない。
トムもビルと同様、勤勉さに欠く。
Case 5: Tom = 5 and Bill = 4.5 to 5.5 (i.e. Both of them are not hard workers but not lazy. The speaker does not concern about the absolute degrees, but just focuses on the relative difference.)
勤勉さの観点で言うならば、トムもビルも同程度だ。
トムもビルも同程度の勤勉さだ。
The original sentence “トムはビルと同じように勤勉ではない” should be replaced with “トムはビルと同じくらい勤勉ではない” for the grammatical reason as I explained. “トムはビルと同じくらい勤勉ではない” refers to Case 3 or Case 4 and bears the nuance of condemnation.
You can replace 勤勉 with 真面目 (pron. まじめ). 勤勉さに欠く (pron. きんべんさにかく) is interchangeable with 不真面目だ (pron. ふまじめだ).
同じくらい (not 同じように) is interchangeable with 同様 and 同程度. But 同じくらい is more colloquial whereas you’ll find 同様 and 同程度 more often on a formal written evaluation sheet.
Tom is no more hardworking than Bill is.
Thank you so much! This was an extremely helpful breakdown of the sentence.