Can this sentence be interpreted in more than one way?


I read a sentence

> 彼女はわかっていた。あるいは、わかっていると思っていた。

It was translated as "She knew, or she thought she knew/knows."

Prior to seeing this translation, in my head, I interpreted it as "I knew her,
or so I thought."

Is my interpretation valid or not? And if not, why?




Your interpretation is incorrect.

The `は` in `彼女は` clearly indicates that she is the one doing the knowing. Your
interpretation would be written as `彼女**を**わかっていた。あるいは、わかっていると思っていた`

However, I would translate it a bit differently. I would translate `わかる` as
"understanding" as opposed to "knowing" which would be `知る(しる)`. So my
translation would be `She had understood. Or she thought she had understood`.
The difference might be negligeable depending on the context, but it feels
worth pointing out in this case since there would be a big difference between
"I knew her" and "I understood her".

