What does ゴミが落ちていない mean when replying the question 日本に来て、驚いたことは何ですか?

Question

There is a dialogue as follows,

A: 日本に来て、驚いたことは何ですか。What struck you when you arrived in Japan?

B: ゴミが落ちていない。The trash is not falling down.

I am confused in translating ゴミが落ちていない。. My attempt is "The trash is not falling down" but it seems to be "funny" or "weird".

What is the correct translation?

Answer 1

ゴミが落ちている here does not mean "trash is falling" (continuous action) but it refers to the state after the trash has fallen to the ground.

See: When is Vている the continuation of action and when is it the continuation of state?

As you know, 落ちる is usually an instant action. So ゴミが落ちていない essentially means the town is clean. Depending on the context, 落ちている may refer to a progressive action (e.g., "the airplane is now falling"), but that should be far less common.

And there is another problem in this dialog. When you are asked a question like this ("What is ...?"), the answer should be in the noun form. The easiest way to do it is to nominalize the verb using こと. B's answer should have been:

B: ゴミが落ちていないことです。

Answer 2

State vs. Action in Progress

If a Japanese-speaker said:

「Aさんは[結婚]{けっこん}しています / いる。」,

that would mean "A is married." It does not mean "A is in the middle of getting married." or "A is in the middle of his/her wedding."

Person A got married (some time) ago and s/he is still married. That is the meaning of the sentence. It is a statement of a state/situation, and not of an on-going action.

The same goes for:

「ゴミが[落]{お}ちていない。」

This sentence is about a state, and not about an action in progress. It only takes a fraction of a second for trash to fall from your hand, for instance, to the ground. A sentence describing that action/phenomenon would be pretty useless unless one was discussing physics or something.

In the context of a foreigner's first impression of Japan, what is important and what actually matters is whether the streets are clean or full of litter.

ゴミが落ちる ⇒ No one does anything about it ⇒ ゴミが落ちている

ゴミが落ちる ⇒ Someone sweeps the street or no one litters in the first place ⇒ ゴミが落ちていない　

「ゴミが落ちていない。」, threfore, means "There is no litter (to be found) on the streets."

It is not very practical to use the word "to fall" in the TL if the TL is to sound natural.