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I have a sentence in my text book using the grammar 他にも which I understand to be (besides or as well as). In the sentences to come the student seems like they haven’t had their family over for a visit yet hence why they want to talk to somebody about it. With that in mind 他にも can’t mean (besides you) which is how I would read it. Please translate and explain! Feel free to use other examples, Thank you.

留学生: 今年の夏に、家族が遊びに来るから、泊まる所を探しているんですが、誰に聞いたらいいですか。

先生: そうですね。家族が遊びに来たことがある留学生が他にもいると思うから、まずそういう人を探したらいいと思います。

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    It's not clear to me why you think 'besides you' wouldn't work as a (non-literal) translation. If you give you're full translation attempt for this conversation it might be easier to figure out your problem. May 17, 2020 at 8:35
  • Hey thank you for your reply. The thing is that if the exchange student hasn’t had her family over for a visit yet then why would the teacher say to them “besides you there are other kids that have had their family’s over so I think you should ask them”. Please correct me if I’m thinking about this wrong. Thank you
    – Dave07
    May 17, 2020 at 13:22

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Not sure this is worthy of an answer since it's more about English than Japanese, but it was too long for a comment.

I see your point but I think you may be overthinking it. Languages aren't always entirely logical. If you asked me who you should ask about places to stay and I simply replied "There are students who've had their family over, so ...", wouldn't you find that an odd and quite disconnected statement? If I said "there are other students who've had their family over, so...", as you say, it isn't entirely logical, but it has a better flow to it and I think it is a quite natural response.

Another way to think about it would be to add some emphasis to give "there are other students who have had there family over". In this case the "other" distinguishes two kinds of students: those that have and those that have not had family over.

You should probably also note that although my translations have used "other students", where "other" adjectively modifies "students", ほかにも is actually adverbially modifying いる. The literal translation would be students who've had their families over additionally exist. You could then ask "what do they exist in addition to?" Answer: they exist in addition to you, who has not had your family over.

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    I'm not sure if this is true in Japanese, but my impression is that in saying "other students have had their family over" the teacher is impliying "other students faced the same issue", because if they had their family over, then they faced the same issue. So my impression is that 「他にも」 could either (or both) point to "Other students had their family over [as you will, so I'm grouping you with them]" or "Other students had their family over [so they faced the same issue]".
    – Mauro
    May 17, 2020 at 14:53
  • I agree with Mauro, the fact that you'll have your family coming over puts you in the same group than students whose family has visited them, as opposed to the other group, a.k.a students who have not received any visit so far and do not expect their families to come over, either. So you are in the same group than those students in the sense that you are in their situation.
    – jarmanso7
    May 17, 2020 at 21:33
  • Imagine the teacher says: あなたのように家族が遊びに来たことがある留学生が他にもいると思う.
    – jarmanso7
    May 17, 2020 at 21:36
  • Thank you everyone this really helps!!
    – Dave07
    May 22, 2020 at 6:55
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In this case, 他にもいる could be translated as "there are others [who] ..." so you have "I think there are other exchange students whose parents have visited, so you should look for someone like that [who has had that experience]."

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