って / 様子

[eeky]

Hi,

1. A girl has entered a compartment in a train and has been talking to two boys there, telling them to get themselves ready because the train will soon be at its destination. One of the boys asks her to leave so that they can get changed:

「よろしければ、着替えるから出てってくれないかな？」

Is 出てって = 出て行って?

2. Then the girl says:

「いいわよ ——— みんなが通路でかけっこしたりして、あんまり子供っぽい振る舞いをするもんだから、様子を見に来てみただけよ」

Does 様子 refer to the situation in the corridor or the situation in the compartment? Or is not possible to tell?

 

[Toritoribe]

1)
Yes.

2)
their(= boys') condition

 

[eeky]

Thanks Toritoribe. In (2), how are you able to tell?

 

[Morphling]

って / 様子

Keyword here is 見に来る。Came HERE (implied) to see. に here denotes purpose. 来る implies ここに来る

The full clause in English style verbosity would be その様子を見るために、ここに来てみただけ。

If it was some corridor and the boys are not in the corridor, I would expect 廊下に様子を見に行ってきた somewhere in the sentence since there was no mention of any corridor in the conversation.

 

[Toritoribe]

In the first half of the sentence, she was talking about their(the boys) behavior, and then said 様子を見に来てみただけ. If it's a description about the corridor or compartment, for instance 通路があんまり騒がしいもんだから、様子を見に来てみただけよ, she is talking about the situation in the corridor.

When the compartment was closer to the corridor than the place where she had been, and she came to see the corridor, 見に来てみた can work even if the boys was not in the corridor.

 

[eeky]

There are two boys in a compartment of a train carriage. There are some other children playing outside in the corridor of the train. (Morphling: I am translating 通路 as "corridor". I assume that is what it means in the context.) In the first part of the sentence, I think the girl is talking about the other children playing in the corridor, not the two boys in the compartment. The girl has come from another part of the train. In terms of the meaning of the story, it is plausible that 見に来てみた refers to her coming from another part of the train to see what the commotion in the corridor is about, or her coming into the compartment from the corridor to see what the boys are doing.

When I read the Japanese version I thought it referred to the former. However, on checking the English, it seems it should mean the latter. I wondered whether I had understood the Japanese incorrectly (and if so, why) or whether the Japanese was ambiguous.

 

[Toritoribe]

If みんな are not the boys she is talking to, as you wrote, it's common to interpret that 様子 refers to the situation in the corridor, not what they(= the boys) are doing in the compartment. However, みんな can mean all the boys in the car including the boys in the compartment, so 様子 can be the boys' 様子 in that sense.

 

[eeky]

OK, thanks.

 

[letianchen]

かけっこしたりして

how do you interpret this part?

 

[eeky]

かけっこしたりして

how do you interpret this part?

I had to look it up, but from WWWJDIC, かけっこする means to race or sprint (then the したりして part means "doing things like...", as you probably know).

 

[Morphling]

って / 様子

駆け競べ is the original word.
かけくらべ
駆ける to run + 競べ to compete/compare

 

[Toritoribe]

（っ）こ is a suffix to mean "competing".

こ
［接尾］
１ 名詞または動詞の連用形に付く。「こ」の上に促音が加わることもある。
㋒二人以上で同じ動作を競い合う意を表す。「駆けっ―」「にらめっ―」

こ［接尾］の意味 - 国語辞書 - goo辞書

かけくらべ and かけっこ are different words, the meanings are close, though.

 

[applesauce21]

I'm guessing you're reading the first harry potter in Japanese? Lucky bugger I'd love to have harry potter and lotr in harry potter. It'd be so interesting to see how things are translated!