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"「タクシーに乗る」は英語で、I ride a taxiで正解!?"

I saw this question being posted on the web by someone and my issue is about the meaning of the sentence itself specifically the phrase "I ride a taxiで正解!?".

Does the で in this case refer to the usage that indicates "by means of~"? Also, is it okay to use が instead ?

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  • questions like this remind me forcefully that being able to parse a sentence and being able to explain a sentence are very different... >_< I'm pretty sure this is a case of "unspoken information/grammar structures being implied" ...but I'm not confident enough to broach an answer. Jul 6, 2018 at 9:05
  • If possible, can you elaborate a bit more on the "unspoken information" part?
    – user30292
    Jul 6, 2018 at 13:50
  • not being a native Japanese speaker, sometimes I feel that certain phrases, in this case Xで正解, or as user4092 below notes, Yで良い, or Zで十分, which translate to something like "is correct as X", "is good as Y" or "is good/close enough as Z" respectively, ... I feel as if maybe there is an unspoken conditional verb such as "翻訳されたら" between で and 正解... but again, not being native, perhaps I'm imagining that, and Japanese people don't get that sense at all. Jul 6, 2018 at 15:36

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Yes, it means "with" or "by means of" and that structure is often used when you say …で良い (be fine with something) or …で十分だ (be enough with something).

And as you say, you can also use a double subject sentence, i.e. タクシーに乗るは英語で I ride a taxiが正解?, though it implies "I ride a taxi" is an only correct answer among choices.

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