Hi folks, in the following sentence,
それでも喜びと悲しみのありようだけはいちおうつかめていると、自分では考えていた。
is つかめて the te-form of つかめる the potential-form of つかまる ( 捕まる )? Thanks for any help.
It’s the te-form of the potential of つかむ 掴む (understand, grasp)
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Many thanks!
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Hmm?
I hadn’t thought about the potential having a te-form.
What would it be used for? Something like 読めて.
You can use it the same way you’d use the て form in other cases. If you need to combine two clauses and the first clause ends with a potential form, you can connect them by making it the て form.
この本は難しそうなと思っていたけど、とりあえず読めて楽しんでいる。
I thought this book seemed difficult, but for now I’m able to read it and I’m enjoying it.
The most basic て form uses shouldn’t be too surprising. In the the first post, it’s used with いる to express that the state is continuing.
Here’s a blog post about why our brains are still able to read garbled text (which you’ve probably seen in English too, since it goes viral now and then), and to express “able to completely read” they use 読めてしまう
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