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I read in a Japanese Grammar(*) written in French:

息子【むすこ】は元気【げんき】で,私達【わたしたち】も安心【あんしん】した.

~ "My son is healthy, and we feel reassured". (translation from the French translation given by Reiko Shimamori: "Mon fils est en bonne santé, et nous en sommes rassurés.")

What's the exact meaning of も in this sentence?

Since も doesn't coordinate propositions, this particle can't mean "my son is healthy and we feel reassured". I don't think も stands for "(we) too" as in "my son is healthy and we too feel reassured".

Reiko Shimamori writes somewhere in her book that も may have an "emphatic meaning" but I can't find the reference.

Any idea to help me?

(*) Grammaire japonaise systématique (Reiko Shimamori), I.235

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This も can be understood along the lines of "as well" or "too". To put it very verbosely, this も means "just like others" or "I guess we're not the only ones, but..."

This kind of も, which vaguely refers to "unspecific others", occurs commonly in Japanese.

To take another example, when a boss gives a word of advice to their people:

  • 君も、もう若くないんだから…
  • 君は、もう若くないんだから…

The former sounds milder to me, because it sounds like "you're not the only one (to blame), but ...". I don't know how to translate this to English, but I may use "kind of" or something similar which makes the sentence milder.

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  • Thank you very much. How would you translate : "My son is healthy, and we, too, feel reassured ?" (with the 'too' meaning something like 'like the others I was speaking about").
    – suizokukan
    Apr 1, 2015 at 15:58

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