トラブル

Borrowed from English "trouble", but narrower. Japanese トラブル names a particular incident that has gone wrong — it is countable, it happens to you rather than being something you have, and it usually involves either a dispute between people or a malfunction. English "I'm in trouble" in the sense of being in a bad position is not トラブル.

Two main areas

• Between people: 隣人(りんじん)とトラブルになる (fall into a dispute with a neighbour). The と marks the other party.
• Machines and systems: システムトラブル, 機械(きかい)のトラブル, delays on the railways.

COMPARED WITH 問題(もんだい): 問題(もんだい) is the broader word — an issue, a question, anything that needs solving, including one you set out to work on. トラブル is something that has gone wrong unexpectedly. A maths exercise is a 問題(もんだい) and never a トラブル.

Common collocations

• トラブルが起(お)きる / トラブルが発生(はっせい)する: trouble occurs. The 発生(はっせい) version is the more formal, official-announcement wording — it is what a railway or a utility company says.
• トラブルに巻(ま)き込(こ)まれる: get caught up in trouble someone else started
• トラブルを避(さ)ける: avoid trouble
• トラブルを解決(かいけつ)する: resolve it

Compounds: トラブルシューティング (troubleshooting), トラブルメーカー (troublemaker).