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...だからといって、昨日も、山ほど宿題を出すのをためらうわけではなかった。 (official Japanese TL)
...but it hadn't stopped her giving them a huge pile of homework the day before (original Harry Potter text)

"It won't stop X doing Y" seems like a really useful construct to learn e.g. "the accident didn't stop him from learning to drive". I wonder just how natural and close to this meaning Yをためらうわけではない is? My literal translation is "It doesn't mean that X will hesitate in doing Y", which sounds rather clumsy, and I'm always suspicious about the translations in this book.

I'm also confused because ためらう is supposed to be an intransitive verb.

user3856370
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    It's useful to forget the "It won't stop X doing Y" construction when speaking Japanese. Related: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/32436/5010 – naruto Sep 02 '23 at 22:02
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    明鏡国語辞典 says that ためらう is a transitive verb although it's sometimes used intransitively. 返答をためらう are 返答にためらう are both correct, but the former is more common. – naruto Sep 02 '23 at 23:44

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When I search 「ためらうとは」 the Google definition pulled up has the example sentence 「受診するのを―」 so the transitive use does seem established.

Literally translated, 'It didn't stop her giving them homework' is something like 「それは宿題を出すのを止めなかった」 which sounds horribly awkward in Japanese, with a nebulous but almost definitely inanimate subject (Japanese doesn't really like inanimate subjects for transitive verbs) translating the dummy subject 'it' from the Japanese sentence.

The sentence you've got is 'That didn't mean she hesitated to give them plenty of homework' literally. I honestly find the sentence to be fine in English and it's fine in Japanese there too. The one problem is maybe the wording you used for it.

Angelos
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  • I still think ''That didn't mean she hesitated to give them plenty of homework' sounds horribly clunky but as long as the Japanese sounds natural I'm happy. Thanks. – user3856370 Sep 03 '23 at 07:47