Find him and kill him

Ok, this is a weird one.
I have a friend that studies Klingon.
When we learn phrases like
『トイレはどこですか」 or 『魚を食べません。」
which are useful in everyday life, he learns phrases like
“Find him and kill him!”
Now I simply have to counter that one at some time by saying it in Japanese.
I guess it will be something based on 捕る and 殺す. But how to glue these one together. I can’t really find the way to do it.
Since “him” in this case probably is mentioned before, it is probably omitted in the Japanese version.
I might be on the completely wrong track thinking too non Japanese while trying to get this to work.

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I’m probably very wrong, because while I’ve been doing WaniKani for the better part of a year, I’ve only been studying grammar a couple of months. But I’m taking a stab at it in the interest of learning. I think it would be something like:
「彼を捕えて、殺せ!」
based on a vague recollection of having read something about using the -て form to string verbs together.

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Of course the te-form. It was just simpler than I thought. And when you said it I remembered that I had read that too, and found it.
And then the last obvious(?) mystery (It might be that I am tired right now).
Why 捕えて and not 捕って?

捕る isn’t used for people, only other stuff like fish and whatnot.

If you want to say “catch (a person)”, you use 捕らえる.

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What about use 殺せ? Wouldn’t that be a but more forceful than て form?

Edit: Nevermind that was already used… :sweat_smile:

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The only thing I have to add is that a Klingon warrior would find that phrase useful in everyday life.

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Have you read Hamlet? It’s better in its original Klingon.

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I found a copy of Hamlet in the original Klingon in a bookshop near me a number of years back. Not entirely sure why I didn’t buy it, especially considering we were studying Hamlet in school at the time.

とらえる

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Oh gosh this title scared me so much … so many scenarios ran through my head …

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Nah you can say 捕らえる. It means the same thing as 捕える. In fact, 捕らえる is more common.

I’m level 7 and probably way off, but I found this interesting and decided to give it a shot, I can’t type kanjis here because I’m at work, but I found a way to make it hiragana, If I had to say that I’d say something like this: かれ を みつけて そして ころせて
I’m curious because the sentence says find, not catch… so I thought that みつけて would be a better fit, but please correct me if I’m wrong :slight_smile:

Lies! WaniKani teaches 捕える, therefore 捕える is what all people use. Anything else is disinformation.

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Oh, shoot. You’re right. His English sentence does say “find.” As soon as I saw the vocab he was suggesting, I kinda got lost in the weeds with those. :sweat_smile:

NOOOOOOOOOOOO

begins to disintegrate

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I have no idea what I am doing.

Star Trek manga?

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That much is apparent - you’ve used a season 3 Worf in the second panel, and a season 2 Worf in the second-last. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I think the most common verb for finding people would be 見つける. One line that pops into my head from years ago is in the Higurashi anime when one of the characters is on some murder spree and after finding the MC, says 「見~つけた!」, I found you!

Using that logic you could say “Find him and kill him” as 見つけたら殺せ / 殺して。This would more literally be “Once you find him, kill him”, but to link the verbs in the exact same way it’s being done in English sounds weird as we use て form to both link verbs and as a request, so 見つけて殺して sounds weird, and 見つけて殺せ sounds only a little better, at least intuitively, even though they’re both technically correct.

Yeah I’d use 見つける but I wouldnt put it in たら form. Sorta makes the “find him” part lose the commanding feeling.

Yeah, that’s the problem. Maybe the happy medium would be 「あいつを見つけて、そして殺せ」Puts emphasis on “Find him, and kill him.”

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