I want to understand this sentence fully...

So I read this sentence in a game:

"Mattaku...Doko mite tatakatteru no kashira"

And I understand everything apart from how the verbs "miru" and tatakau" have come together to form a meaning. I know that you can use the "te" form to link verbs, and I guess that's what she's done here, but when I read this I can't formulate a meaning in my head as to what it means because of the middle bit (It comes out to me as "where are you watch and fighting?", like kiete iku, dissapear and go, (fade), or itekimasu, go and come, (leave and comeback). at least, that's how I understand them). That is what I hope someone could explain. Dareka oshiete kurenai ka? w

Additionally, the translation the game gives is:
"Y'know, you're supposed to watch your opponent when you fight" (It's probably one of those times when the literall is just stupid, and they change it).

But I need to understand the literall first before I understand why this is the translation. Thanks.

(Sorry for the lack of kana/kanji, this English Wii U doesn't seem to support writing it. I hope they update it with the ability to in the future or something cause the Wii U has become my no.1 for internet browsing).

You need to differentiate between "mite tatakau" and "kiete iku", "itte kuru" or "oshiete kureru". The former is just conbined two verbs with the -te form, so "mite tatakau" means "to watch and (then) fight". Whereas the second verbs in the latter examples(iku, kuru, kureru) are auxiliary verbs and often lose their original meanings. For instance, "kiete iku" doesn't always involve a movement "to go". It can be used also for continuous action/movement in the time line(or rather, this is the main use of "~te iku").

Oh, I see. I knew there was a difference when certain verbs were attatched using "~te", but I thought "~Te iku" and the like were just in the "verb and then verb" group. Thanks for telling me the difference. The final thing now is just, now that that is the case, the sentence is:

"Where do you look and (then) fighting?" (Sorry for being so literall)

The only way that I can see this working is if that the "te" form has some sort of "whilst" connotation. For example:

"Where do you look whilst fighting?"

Clean that up into normal English, and then I would understand. But "nagara" is the "whilst" thing. So what is the case here? Thanks again.

"Minagara tatakau" refers to an action "to fight while continuing looking at a specific thing", for instance "me wo minagara tatakau (to fight while looking the opponent in the eye)", whereas "mite tatakau" has a nuance of "to observe the opponent and (then) fight".

Okay. So how does "tatakatteru" translate into english here? I know "~Te iru" is for "ing" basically. Or, "in the state of". Like "shiteiru"= "I know" (I am in the state of knowing). I feel like the more I ask the less I know lol. So could you write what "doko mite tatakatteru no kashira" means in literall English?

Is it something like, "where do you look in battle?" (tatakatteru being, "in the state of fighting", or, "in battle" as a worthy translation). But then there is no implication of "and then" or anything. And I could think of other ways of writing the same thing. Argh. I think I will see the light with a literall translation from you lol. Thanks again.

I wonder where you look while fighting.

Doko minagara tatakatteru no kashira
I wonder where you keep on looking while fighting.

"Tatakau" belongs to 継続動詞[keizoku dōshi] "continual verb", not 瞬間動詞[shunkan dōshi] "punctual verb", so tatakatte(i)ru is the present progressive.

This is the first time I've seen かしら. Jisho.org says that it's a particle; is it a sentence/clause-final particle? It looks like it follows nouns so verbs have to be nominalized (thus the の in the sentence above). Do verbs have to be nominalized with の in this case, or is こと also used? Also, how polite is かしら?

It's a sentence final particle, but that の[no] is the explanatry の[no]. かしら[Kashira] can be attached to (終止形[shūshikei] of) verbs/adjectives.

e.g. (from a song おもいで酒[Omoide zake] by 小林幸子[Kobayashi sachiko])
あの人どうしているかしら。
Ano hito dōshite iru kashira.
I wonder how he is now.


かしら[Kashira] is casual. I believe it's not so commonly used in real conversation recently. It's often used as a symbol of female's words in dramas or novels, as same as わ[wa], の[no] or もの[mono]. (FYI, かしら[kashira] is from ～か知らぬ[ka shiranu] "I don't know if~".)

Ah, okay, ありがとうございました. I thought is was the nominalizing の because in the examples I saw, it only seemed to be used after verbs, not nouns.

Oh I see. So it did have a "while" connotation. I understand everything now. Thanks for explaining the differences between all these things I assumed were the same