Natural expression for "Parking space" in Japanese

Question

I'm looking for one or more natural ways to say "parking space" in Japanese.

Here are a few candidates I've found via search and other means, but I'd like to know what people in Japan actually use on a daily basis.

スペース

駐車スペース

余裕 (?)

Without knowing this word I could probably just say "この駐車場にはとまるところがないね", but I'd like to know a more specific expression for this.

Answer 1

駐車場 is a parking lot, a dedicated area for parking cars. Users are often charged hourly, daily or monthly.

If you want to refer to a individual parking space in a 駐車場, or a "space to park a car" in general (such as road shoulders), you can simply say （車を）駐【と】める場所.

駐 is a kanji used for this purpose (to park). There are also 車を止【と】める (to stop a running car, eg, taxi) and 車を停【と】める (to stop a car, eg, at a red light). If you're not sure, it's safe to stick to hiragana.

• この駐車場には、もう車をとめる場所がない。　＝　この駐車場は満車だ。
• 駐車場がないので、他にとめる場所を探そう。

I think 駐車（する）スペース is equally OK, too.

By the way, パーキングエリア is 和製英語 and refers to rest areas / rest stops along highways.

Answer 2

Closest I can think of...

車をとめるとこ

a place to park (a) car - a parking space

This doesn't always refer to a "space in a parking lot", but definitely is a very common way to refer to one.

駐車場では車をとめるとこがなかった。

"There weren't any spaces left in the parking lot."

Answer 3

From my experience here in Japan the most used phrase is 駐車場. I have not heard anyone use the above mentioned phrases or words.

If you wanted to express not being able to park somewhere like in your example sentence,

この駐車場にはとまるところがないね。

a more common way to say it would be

ここ空いていないね。

Or inversely describe that the carpark is full by saying:　

この駐車場は満{まん}車｛しゃ｝になっているよ。

If you want to stick closer to your example sentence you could just shorten the sentence a bit and like l'électeur said, change the verb to とめる and conjugate it in the 可能形 (potential) form.

ここにはとめれない。

Obviously if you need to make these examples more polite just conjugate and add respective polite forms where they are needed.

Answer 4

I've also asked this question to native Japanese speakers and the answer was a bit ambiguous.

As far as I understand they will either use:

空いているところ

とまるところ

I also asked how they would refer to parking stall number and they said they would just use the number.

駐車場の２１番に…

Answer 5

My Japanese friend right next to me said it's 駐車スペース, but that she doesn't say or hear it very often.

You'd be surprised at the things for which names are well-known in English, but no one around me can name in Japanese. Although she came up with this one in a moment, this may be one of those words. For example, I've yet to talk to one Japanese person who knows the word for "roadblock".