When we say "Ms. Ono is married to Mr. Mori", which sentence is correct? "小野さんは森さんと結婚した" or "小野さんと森さんは結婚した"? How to say "Ono and Mori are both married"?
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2"Ono and Mori are both married" You mean Ono and Mori are married to someone (else)?– sundownerCommented Jan 27 at 9:44
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2@sundowner That was my own first thought. Using both makes it sound like Ono and Mori are definitely not married to one another.– A.EllettCommented Jan 27 at 12:51
1 Answer
If you wanted to say Ms. Ono is married to Mr. Mori, then both of your sentence are technically correct, but the former is much more natural.
小野さんは森さんと結婚した
lit. 小野さん did the marriage with 森さん (hence the particle と)
小野さんと森さんは結婚した
lit. 小野さん and 森さん did the marriage (together) (hence the particle と)
If you wanted to say "Both 小野さん and 森さん are married (to someone else)", then you should use the particle も
小野さんも森さんも結婚している
You'd use a も after each name, and we use 結婚している (instead of 結婚した) to indicate that they're married as of now (their marriage is still an on-going state)
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1Note about that last sentence: it's fine as-is of course, but "in the real world" I feel you'd likely rather hear the "eves less ambiguous" 小野さんも森さんも既婚者です. (But yeah, this is maybe not really relevant for a beginner level grammar question.)– WillCommented Jan 28 at 2:02