Usage of に or で in the following sentence

Question

I have a doubt regarding the use of で and に in the following sentences:

1. 私は車の中に座っている
2. 私は車の中で座っている

As per me, I think で should be used as, the person is sitting inside the car (i.e. an action is being performed inside the car), so で should have been used. Whereas, when I used Google translator it was showing the first sentence i.e. 私は車の中に座っている, and not で座っている. However, when I clarified it by involving the use of 椅子 then the particle governing 車の中 changed to で i.e. 私は車の中で椅子に座っている.

So, my question is,

1. Whether the use of に instead of で grammatical (sentences 1 and 2)?

2. Could you please highlight the difference between 1st and 2nd sentence, if sentence 1 is grammatical?

教えてください

Answer 1

私は車の中に座っている is more natural. When you use the verb 座る, the particle に is used to mark the thing on/in which the sitting is happening. I can understand your confusion because 座る is a tricky example.

Sometimes it helps to analyse sentences in terms of its main message. This is very general advice but, is the sentence mainly trying to describe a 'what' (the action) or a 'where' (the place)? で is generally used with 'what' sentences and に is generally used with 'where' sentences. It's more obvious with things like chairs (椅子に座る) which describe a 'where', but the principle is the same. It's not impossible to use で with 座る, but it would no longer be marking the specific object of the sitting.

So is a sentence like I'm sitting in the car describing a 'what' or a 'where'? The main message of this sentence is not to describe an action being performed (a 'what') - it's to describe where the person is sitting (a 'where'). So に makes more sense. But if you change the focus of the sentence to a 'what', something like I'll eat the bento in the car, now it's clear that the main point of the sentence is to describe an action which is happening in the car. Then it would be 車の中で弁当を食べる.