できる / 待たされる / オーバーかもしれないが... / 待てば待つほど ...

Hi,

1. 行列のできる店

I'm a bit puzzled by the use of できる. Does this mean something like "restaurant where there are likely to be queues"? Or "restaurant where one will probably have to queue"?


2. １時間くらい待たされるだろうと思っていたら...

a) 待たされる is a shortened form of 待たせられる, "be made to wait", right?

b) I'm not very sure about the temporal aspect of this sentence, especially with だろう. Does it mean "When I thought we had been waiting (lit. made to wait) for about an hour..." or "When I thought we would be waiting for about an hour..."?


3. その時、オーバーかもしれないが、４０分持った者にしか得られない特別 な物をついに手に入れたという気分になった。

I am having some difficulties with this sentence. This is my attempt:

その時、オーバーかもしれないが = At that time, though it may be an exaggeration,

という気分になった = I had a feeling that

ついに手に入れた = we finally received

４０分持った者にしか得られない特別な物を = special food available only to people who had waited for 40 minutes

This might be all completely wrong, but, in particular:

a) I don't really understand 得られない. Is it passive form, literally meaning "(food that) is obtained (only by people ... etc)"?

b) Does "had a feeling that" refer to the feeling that the food was special in the way described? I mean, you can't "have a feeling" that you receive food (which is how it tends to read in my translation) -- you know whether you have been served or not, right?


4. それでは、待てば待つほどおいしくなると言えるのか。 １時間以上も待ったのに期待を裏切られることもある。 元々おいしくないものはやはりおいしくないのである。

My translation: "So, can it be said that the longer one waits (to be served at a restaurant), the better the food tastes? There are times when one's expectations are disappointed even though one waits for over an hour. As you'd expect, food that originally wasn't very tasty remains not very tasty."

Is this OK? Is the writer asking a rhetorical question and then giving reasons why it might be answered in the negative?

1)
行列が店の前にできる店
restaurant where customers line up to wait to get in

2) a)
Yes, it's the causative passive. 待たせられる is never used.

Japanese verb conjugations and adjective declensions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

b)
It's not １時間くらい待たされただろうと. The speaker expected that they would have to wait for about an hour before went to the restaurant.
(The sentence continued as "but actually it's 40 minutes", right?)

3) a)
It's the potential.

b)
I had a feeling that we finally received.

4)
Yes.

Thanks Toritoribe

1) Can you think of an English verb that できる would translate to in this sentence?

2b) The next sentence is でも時計を見たら、４０分近く並んでいた。So, the speaker thought that they would have to wait an hour, but actually it turned out to be only 40 minutes? Is that right?

3a) This wretched passive/potential thing will be the death of me. So does ４０分持った者にしか得られない特別な物 mean "special food that only people who have been waiting for 40 minutes can obtain"?

1)
"To be made" might be close.

2) b)
What is the last half of the sentence which is continued to １時間くらい待たされるだろうと思っていたら? でも時計を見たら、４０分近く並んでいた seems like the next sentence.

3)
Yes.
If it's the passive, 特別な物 is to be the subject of 得られない. I might say this somewhere, it's not so common that an inanimated thing is the subject of a sentence in Japanese.

2b) Oh yes, sorry, I left a bit out. It is:

１時間くらい待たされるだろうと思っていたら、案外早く席につくことができた。でも時計を見たら、４０分近く並んでいた。

"When I thought we would be waiting for an hour, we were unexpectedly quickly able to take our seats. But when I looked at my watch, we had been queueing for 40 minutes." This translation of mine does not make total sense to me. There is something illogical about it, and I feel I am missing some aspect.

---------- Post added at 01:32 ---------- Previous post was at 01:28 ----------

Toritoribe said:

If it's the passive, 特別な物 is to be the subject of 得られない. I might say this somewhere, it's not so common that an inanimated thing is the subject of a sentence in Japanese.

Click to expand...

Thanks, yes, I remember you saying that, and I do try to bear it in mind, but I do also seem to come across a number of sentences that are definitely passive and which have an inanimate subject, so I am not very confident about always applying that rule.

Again, it's not １時間くらい待たされただろう but １時間くらい待たされるだ ろう. The speaker expected/thought they would have to wait for an hour when being in the line or maybe before went to the restaurant, and not "they felt as if they had been waiting for an hour when they finally took their seats".

たら is more close to an adversative conjunction just like 思っていたけど, when the main clause has a nuance of "unexpected".

eeky said:

Thanks, yes, I remember you saying that, and I do try to bear it in mind, but I do also seem to come across a number of sentences that are definitely passive and which have an inanimate subject, so I am not very confident about always applying that rule.

Click to expand...

Yeah, indeed. The context is the main key, as always.

There may be some confusion over the wording of my translation: "I thought we would be waiting for an hour" means "I thought we would have to wait for an hour", so hopefully we are on the same wavelength there. The first sentence makes sense to me if it means "When/Although I thought we would be waiting [= thought we would have to wait] for an hour, we were unexpectedly quickly able to take our seats." What doesn't make sense to me is that it should be followed by "But when I looked at my watch, we had been queueing for 40 minutes." The word "but" is illogical to me.

On this continual passive/potential confusion that I seem to have, I've realised also that when a verb precedes a noun and modifies it, I have a strong default tendency to expect the noun to be the subject of the verb (in the sense "noun that verbs"). In this case, that would entail a passive verb. I think I don't at all expect the noun to be the the object of the verb, which seems to actually be the case here if I'm understanding it correctly.

１時間くらい待たされるだろうと思っていたら、案外早く席につくことができた。でも時計を見たら、４０分近 く並んでいた。

eeky said:

There may be some confusion over the wording of my translation: "I thought we would be waiting for an hour" means "I thought we would have to wait for an hour", so hopefully we are on the same wavelength there. The first sentence makes sense to me if it means "When/Although I thought we would be waiting [= thought we would have to wait] for an hour, we were unexpectedly quickly able to take our seats." What doesn't make sense to me is that it should be followed by "But when I looked at my watch, we had been queueing for 40 minutes." The word "but" is illogical to me.

Click to expand...

It is something like this:

１時間くらい待たされるだろうと思っていたら、
(While waiting) I was expecting to be kept waiting for an hour or so, then
案外早く席につくことができた。
(I felt that) we were seated earlier than expected.
でも時計を見たら、４０分近 く並んでいた。
But when I looked at my watch, I realised that after all we were queuing almost 40 minutes (which was long enough to complain about, etc.)

Does it make more sense?

Hi undrentide. Yes, that makes more sense now. Thank you!

得られる is seldom, or probably never used as the passive. These empirical rules might be also the key.