When using ながら to describe simultaneous actions, some confusion about which action ながら is attached to

Question

Most sources say the primary action, or the action focused on, occurs at the end of the sentence, whilst the action to which ながら attaches, is a background action, such as:

運転しながら携帯を使ってはいけない。 You must not use your mobile phone while driving.

Translated into English, the 'while' is attached to the background action, just as ながら is in Japanese.

However, this page gives two example sentences:

私は辞書で調べながら、本を読んでいます。

私は本を読みながら、辞書で調べています。

The page states that reading the book is the main action, and thus the first of these sentences is correct, whilst the second is unnatural.

OK. I get this.

The confusion for me arises when I try to translate this into English. To me, it would be more natural to say "I refer to the dictionary while reading" rather than "I read while referring to the dictionary". But in this case, I am attaching the 'while' to the primary action rather than the background action.

I understand that one should learn Japanese on its own terms without translating into English. Nevertheless, the inconsistency between the placement of ながら in the Japanese sentence and the placement of 'while' in the English sentence bothers me. It would help me to understand why this inconsistency arises, even if ultimately we have to accept that there cannot be a one-to-one correspondence between these two languages.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Answer 1

To try and explain this better, let me use two sentences I came up with to explain ながら.

テレビを見ながらピザを食べました。 – I ate pizza while watching TV.

Pizza is the primary action, and watching TV is secondary.

ピザを食べながらテレビを見ました。 – I watched TV while eating pizza.

Watching TV is the primary action, and eating pizza is secondary.

So in Japanese, the part that attaches to the ながら is the part that is linked to while, and goes last. In a sense, we invert the two. In other words, the sentence XながらY translates to "Y while X".

Xながら, Y。- Y while X.

Let's go back to your sentences.

私は辞書で調べながら、本を読んでいます。- I read a book while browsing the dictionary.

Reading the book is the primary action.

私は本を読みながら、辞書で調べています。- I browse a dictionary while reading a book.

Browsing the dictionary is the primary action. Indeed, 調べる is better translated as "looking up (words)" or "browse" rather than "referring". I think the word "refer" is tripping you up.