Difficult to Translate

My secretary sends email to me in Japanese at times to help me improve. Yesterday she sent an email in Romaji asking if I had anything on my calendar for Monday. I understood it and attempted to reply. I got the first part correct - "Right now, Monday's calendar is empty". At least she understood it. But my attempt at the second part was completely indecipherable apparently - "But by Monday it will be full".

The reasons this happens are sometimes complicated. The word you pick from the dictionary may not really fit in that context or is not normally used in the sentence structure you picked. In this case I'm not sure that the concept was one that is even commonly used in Japanese. My secretary and the contracts engineer discussed at quite some length how to say this and they never gave me a good simple translation.

Which leads to another point. When you say something simple in English and someone translates it - why does it take so many words? I have asked this and received a couple of related reasons:

1. Japanese people are not direct in their language - this would be considered rude and they add polite additions. In English you just come out and say it.
2. Because they are not direct, they are often looking for the shading and reasons behind what to us would appear a simple statement. When translating, the translator will attempt to help the listener understand shades and meaning behind what the speaker said.

Interesting. But don't take anything that I write on the Japanese language as fact or based on any real scholarship. I find Japanese people have more in common with me than differences and the perceived differences are just interesting.