にあって / 姿 / だろう / とともに

[eeky]

Hi,


1. 小学校の時にいじめにあって、どんなにつらかったこと か。 その気持ちは実際にそういう立場にならないとわからな い。

I'm guessing this means "I was bullied terribly at junior school. Unless you have actually been in that situation, you cannot understand how it feels." However, I don't understand にあって in the first sentence. How does that work? What is the purpose of に, and which あって is it?


2. 成功した友人の姿を見て、うらやましく思うと同時に自 分が情けなく思えた。

a) What are the connotations of 姿 (versus just saying 成功した友人を見て)?

b) I am stuck with the last part of the sentence. To me it looks like "I felt envious, and at the same time he (= friend) was able to think miserably/pitifully". Unfortunately this makes little sense to me. I'm not even sure who 自分 refers to. Could it mean that the friend thought pitifully of the speaker?


3. 私ってなんてばかなんだろう。

Does this mean something like "What an ***** I am!"? Why だろう?


4. 今回の失敗はいい勉強になりました。十分反省するとと もに、今後は＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿と思います。

(The student is supposed to fill in the blank.)

Is the speaker saying that he intends to do two things in the future: reflect on the mistake and do the thing described in the blank?

 

[tokkyo]

For #1 the あって here is 遭う, usually used to mean to encounter something (in a negative way) or to suffer from something. Just remember that it always shows up as a set phrase with に遭う, what に means isn't really important because it is a particle with many meanings

For 2 姿 literally means figure or appearance, similar to 様子, but a natural way of translating and comparing them would be:
成功した友人を見た I saw my friend who had succeeded
成功した友人の姿を見た I saw how my friend had succeeded OR you can just translate it as "I saw my friend who had succeeded" like above
This way of translating it may depend on the context, because usually there isn't just one way to put it into English

And for b, うらやましく思うと同時に自分が情けなく思えた = I felt jealous and pitiful at the same time
自分が is referring to the speaker here, and 情けない means pitiful. 思う can be 'think' but it can also be 'feel', in fact it almost always is 'feel' when there's a ～く form of an adjective involved, such as 嬉しく思う "feel happy"
In terms of context, there's no reason for the person who succeeded to feel pitiful, right? Or for the person who succeeded to feel jealous.

 

[Toritoribe]

1)
に indicates the target/object the subject meets/encounters, as in personにあう, 事故にあう.

2)
The subjects of 見て and うらやましく思う are both the speaker. Why do you think the subject of 情けなく思えた is different?

3)
なんて ～んだろう is almost a set phrase. だろう would be for 詠嘆 "expressing the speakers's deep impression" here.

4)
十分反省する is more likely "the present state". The speaker reflects on the mistake now, and plus, decides to do the thing described in the blank in the future.

 

[eeky]

Thank you both

2)
The subjects of 見て and うらやましく思う are both the speaker. Why do you think the subject of 情けなく思えた is different?

Well, because of 自分. It puzzles me why one would insert 自分が in that position in the sentence for any reason except to indicate a change of subject.

 

[nekojita]

I think it works because although the person feeling the emotions is the same, the target is different. うらやましい is a feeling aimed at the friend (you're jealous of someone, generally) but the 情けない one is the writer/speaker.

Another comment: I read the first one as not saying the writer has been bullied, but rather a simple question, "How terrible is it to be bullied in primary school?", which is immediately answered by the following sentence.

 

[eeky]

Another comment: I read the first one as not saying the writer has been bullied, but rather a simple question, "How terrible is it to be bullied in primary school?", which is immediately answered by the following sentence.

This is given as an example of the use of the idiom/expression ～ことか which is explained as meaning 非常に～, so I think it is not a literal question but more of a rhetorical way of emphasising how bad the bullying was. However, perhaps someone could confirm this.

 

[Toritoribe]

2)
The reason why 自分が is there is to make clear who the subject of 情けない is, as nekojita-san pointed out. If 自分が isn't there, it can be misinterpreted as 彼が情けなく思えた. The subject of 思えた is ALWAYS the speaker, thus, even if it's 彼が情けなく思えた, the one who feels he is pitiful is "I". We can't know what others think except in novel-style writings, as you've no doubt already learned.


どんなにつらかったことか can't be a simple question . This is an exclamatory sentence "How hard it was being bullied at elementary school". 小学校の時にいじめにあって、どんなにつらかったことか, not 小学校の時にいじめにあうのは、どんなにつらいことか, shows that this is an actual experience. Although it's possible that the one who experienced it is not the speaker, depending on the context.

 

[nekojita]

Ah, now I get it. So it could be talking about the experience of someone the author knows, or the author personally, but not bullying in general, right?

 

[eeky]

2)
The reason why 自分が is there is to make clear who the subject of 情けない is, as nekojita-san pointed out. If 自分が isn't there, it can be misinterpreted as 彼が情けなく思えた. The subject of 思えた is ALWAYS the speaker, thus, even if it's 彼が情けなく思えた, the one who feels he is pitiful is "I". We can't know what others think except in novel-style writings, as you've no doubt already learned.

a) Do you mean that 彼が情けなく思えた has 彼 as the subject of 情けなく and the speaker as subject of 思えた? This is very hard for me to understand because I parse 情けなく as adverbial modifying 思えた. Is that wrong?

b) I understand you are saying that 自分 makes clear that the speaker is the subject of 情けない, but how do we actually know that 自分 refers to the speaker?

c) Also, would it make any difference to any of these points discussed if it was 思った rather than 思えた, or is that not relevant?

 

[Toritoribe]

a)
Hmm, I thought 自分が情けなく思えた was the same as 自分が情けないと思えた. Indeed they are the same in meaning, but yeah, grammatically, 自分が is the object of 思えた. 思えた is spontaneous(自発) here. It takes が as the object marker as same as the potential form.

b)
The speaker is talking on his/her viewpoint, so 自分 refers to himself/herself. See the difference.

私は彼を見て自分を情けなく思った。(自分＝私）
彼は彼女を見て自分を情けなく思っただろう。（自分＝彼）

c)
As I wrote in (a, it should be 自分を for 思った.

Ah, now I get it. So it could be talking about the experience of someone the author knows, or the author personally, but not bullying in general, right?

Exactly.

 

[eeky]

Thanks Toritoribe, I understand what you are saying about 自分, but I am in a terrible muddle about other aspects of this and hardly know where to begin. You will have to excuse me if I ask questions that you feel have already been answered.

a) Does 私は彼を見て自分を情けなく思った mean that the speaker felt pity for him/herself (i.e. self-pity)?

b) Does 私は彼を見て自分を情けないと思った make sense? (I would have thought not.)

c) Does 私は彼を見て自分が情けなく思えた mean that the speaker felt pity for him/herself or for pity for 彼? (I made the mistake earlier of using the word "pitiful", but this is inherently confusing as to whether it means full of pity for someone else, or the object of pity, so it's best avoided.)

d) I am very unclear generally about the を...思った versus が...思えた distinction here. I understand in other simple cases the use of が with potential form, but I cannot get my head around it here, or whether the two cases mean something approximately the same in terms of who is thinking what of whom, or something completely different.

 

[Toritoribe]

a)
Yes.

b)
Yes. 私は彼を見て自分が情けないと思った is also correct.

c)
The speaker is talking from the point of view of him/her, as I wrote previously, so 自分 refers to the speaker himself/herself.

d)
が CAN indicate the subject of 思えた. It's quite the same as the potential form.

 

[eeky]

a/c) I understand from what you said earlier that 自分 refers to the speaker, but there are potentially two people involved: the person doing the thinking/feeling and the person thought/felt to be miserable/pitiable. In 自分が情けないと思えた, it is clear to me that 情けない applies to 自分. In the cases of 情けなく思えた, on the other hand, it is not so obvious to me, even if 自分 is doing the thinking/feeling, that the target of the emotion is necessarily also the speaker.

d) Could you summarise the differences in meaning between:

i) 自分が情けなく思えた
ii) 自分を情けなく思えた -- do (i) and (ii) mean the same?
iii) 自分が情けなく思った -- is this actually incorrect (doesn't look it to me), or is it just that it means something different?
iv) 自分を情けなく思った

Thank you for your continuing help with this, and I apologise again for any repetition. To you of course it will all seem very obvious, but to me it is a big and complicated muddle.

 

[Toritoribe]

a) c)
If the person thought/felt to be miserable/pitiable is NOT the speaker himself/herself, why it is necessary to use a word 自分 instead of 彼, 彼女 or like that?

d)
i) iv) 思えた is spontaneous, as I already pointed out, so it has a nuance of "(to feel) automatically/naturally". The difference is subtle, though.
ii) is potential, not spontaneous.
iii) is awkward as a single sentence. 自分 would refer to the subject of 思った in most cases.