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Translation help

eru777

後輩
2 Jul 2012
21
0
11
Hello, the following lyrics are from a song..

言葉は無力と気がついてる
【ことばはむりょくときがついてる】
I realize that words are powerless.

In the above sentence, the translation says it means "I realize that words are powerless" But I don't understand where that meaning comes from word by word.

Where does the sentence have the verb "I understand"? The ついてる in dictionaries means "to have , to be in a state", and what does the と気 have to do there?

Thanks in advance!
 
I see. Thanks very much . So that would make the と particle mean "as..." Right ? (As I notice that words are meaningless)
 
I think it is the "quotative" と. I guess if you had to make it anything in the translation it would be "that" - but you should try to stay away from attempting to map English words to something like と。It's just marking what was noticed:
「言葉は無力」と気がついてる
 
If you don't know the quotative と then your knowledge of Japanese grammar (especially particles) isn't nearly ready to translate Japanese sentences like that. Go back and study the grammar and particles, preferably in a class, but at least with a good textbook.

Japanese word/phrase order differences, idiomatic expressions, particle usage, dropping of elements, etc all combine to make it very frustrating and unproductive to try to directly compare a translation with the original in order to figure it out.
 
Thank you both for your answers.
I thought the quotative と needed a "言った "after it to be labeled as such.
I was wrong though, nevermind, that と labeled the whole sentence before it as "that".
😊
edit: I was informed of the plain と usage that wasn't on the text-fugu grammar I studied, all is well now . 🙂
 
This と also works with various verbs like 思う、知る - it's all the same pattern, you could easily swap out the verbs and make it "know that"/"said that"/"think that" instead of "realise that".
 
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