Saturday, May 7, 2011

What does this mean in Japanese?

Question:


傍らで毛布にくるまっていた三毛猫とともに目覚めさせられた
Can u please explain bit by bit sorry

Answer:


The calico cat at my side and I, nestled in under the blanket, were both awakened.

katawara de mofu ni kurumatte ita mikke neko to tomo ni mezamesaserareta.

I'm not a native speaker, but I believe this is what the person is saying. In a lot of Japanese sentences, the subject of the sentence must be assumed because it is not necessarily included in the sentence. I think the subject of the sentence is "I," but if you had given the whole paragraph instead of just one sentence, it would be easier to guess.

I think it's "I" because of the use of the phrase "tomo ni" --it means together, at the same time, etc. So me and the cat both were awakened.

The first verb modifies the mikke (3 colored) calico cat, kurumaru. Past perfect: kurumatte ita.

The first word is katawara de, so the cat is to the speakers side. I assume that the speaker and the cat were both on the bed or futon nestled in the covers.

The verb there is a really hard one at the end. Me wo sameru is a collocation that means to wake up. If you live in Japan, chances are you've seen mezamashi TV, which is like the Japanese version of Good Morning America.

The trick here is that the verb is both passive and causative.

samerareta. was woken up. (if it was only passive)
samesaseta. made me wake up. (causitive, something forces you to do something, or lets you do something)
Put them together and you get samesaseraru----> samesaserareta. "was awakened" "was made to wake up."
As you can see, when you put them together (which is not that common anyway), the stem first adds causitive, then passive ending. It will always be like this.

Most verbs have shorter verbs. Verbs that end in -iru and -eru (Strong or weak verbs, I forget the terminology) take the long ending. saseru, rareru.

The stem of the verb can be found by making the present negative form, dropping the -nai, and adding saserareru. mezamesaserareru.

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