Towards a better understanding of など


Three sentences from the same news article on NHK 'Easy News':

> 子どもたちは幼稚園の中にいたため、けが **など** はありませんでした。  
>  Becuase the children were in the nursery they weren't injured _or anything_  
>  しかし、門の近くには、子どもを迎えに来た家族 **など** が大勢いました。  
>  However, there were a lot of families _and others_ who had come to collect
> children near the gate.  
>  警察は爆発の理由 **など** を発表していません。  
>  The police did not announce the reasons _and so on_ for the explosion.

This article seems to use など almost obsessively (and is no different from many
other articles I have read on the NHK site).

As you can see from my very childish translations I have great difficulty in
translating など. Most of the time it seems completely unnecessary. I feel that
I'm either somehow missing the nuance of など or there is a better translation
that I'm not aware of.

Is など used naturally in these sentences? Can you help me understand how など
adds useful information to these sentences?




It seems to me that you have a perfectly good understanding of など. Generally,
I would say that など doesn't need to be translated in the English every time it
occurs: it sounds a lot more natural in Japanese than its translations do in
English. Each language is picky about different things; Japanese is picky
about the particularity of things and hearsay in a way that English just
doesn't seem to care.

Nevertheless, the quotes you're providing from the NHK page do seem to be
overdoing the use of など in my opinion. But that could be just a consequence of
those pages being "easy" Japanese.

If you look at [this Fukushima paper's
article](http://www.fukuishimbun.co.jp/articles/-/206037) or [this Asahi
article](http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASK6H73R3K6HUHBI02J.html), you'll see a
different reporting style. The Asahi link (the 2nd link) does use など, but what
is more notable is the use of the pluralizing ending ら in both articles where
the "Easy News" uses など: notably 親ら in the Fukushima article and 迎えに来た保護者ら
from the Asahi site vs 家族など in the Easy News. (And, just the meaning of these
phrases "parents", "guardians", "family" shows the range of possibilities that
can be extrapolated from など.) The NHK site, which is designed not just for
foreigners but a younger Japanese audience, perhaps is avoiding this reporting
style because they might feel it's more complex.

(Incidentally, this perhaps also shows why ら isn't really a plural in the
sense of "s" in English. The comparisons here show how ら is much more like など
than anything else, essentially meaning "and other _things_ that are easily
fall under this category".)




It seems to me that you have a perfectly good understanding of など. Generally,
I would say that など doesn't need to be translated in the English every time it
occurs: it sounds a lot more natural in Japanese than its translations do in
English. Each language is picky about different things; Japanese is picky
about the particularity of things and hearsay in a way that English just
doesn't seem to care.

Nevertheless, the quotes you're providing from the NHK page do seem to be
overdoing the use of など in my opinion. But that could be just a consequence of
those pages being "easy" Japanese.

If you look at [this Fukushima paper's
article](http://www.fukuishimbun.co.jp/articles/-/206037) or [this Asahi
article](http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASK6H73R3K6HUHBI02J.html), you'll see a
different reporting style. The Asahi link (the 2nd link) does use など, but what
is more notable is the use of the pluralizing ending ら in both articles where
the "Easy News" uses など: notably 親ら in the Fukushima article and 迎えに来た保護者ら
from the Asahi site vs 家族など in the Easy News. (And, just the meaning of these
phrases "parents", "guardians", "family" shows the range of possibilities that
can be extrapolated from など.) The NHK site, which is designed not just for
foreigners but a younger Japanese audience, perhaps is avoiding this reporting
style because they might feel it's more complex.

(Incidentally, this perhaps also shows why ら isn't really a plural in the
sense of "s" in English. The comparisons here show how ら is much more like など
than anything else, essentially meaning "and other _things_ that are easily
fall under this category".)

