I had this question in my head for a long time but did not ask it, I am lucky some one did.
Of course I did some of this with the DoJG but having it laid out makes it click more. Maybe some one will find this useful also for normal reading outside satori reader.
Question
Last paragraph: particle に has several meanings … “by”, “to”, “in”, “at”, “on”, “for” … etc, etc (+_+)#
The middle sentence is written as 再僕達が盗んだことが、人間にバレてはいけないからだ。
The English translation given is “That’s because it must not become known to the humans that we stole (anything).”
If this sentence were standing alone, what if anything determines that the particle に takes on the English meaning of “to” … or would it not be possible to know the meaning without context?
For example, (standing alone) could the sentence also be translated as …
“That’s because it must not become exposed by the humans that we stole (anything).”
Reply
Hello, Yuujiin. Thanks for the question. The short answer to your question is, the English word you use to translate the に depends on what the に is actually doing in the Japanese sentence. For example, consider:
公園に行った。
I went to the park.
月曜日に行った。
I went on Monday.
In a passive sentence, に certainly can mean “by” when it marks the agent (the person or thing who performs the verb) in a passive sentence. So, for example, in…
僕の車が、ユージインさんに盗まれた。
My car was stolen by Yuujiin.
…the に is marking the agent, and one way of doing the same thing in English is by using the word “by.”
Another way of putting this is, don’t look at the に and wonder what English word it corresponds to as a part of your first crack at understanding the sentence. Instead, think about the things that に can do in Japanese – mark a location, mark a time, mark the agent of a passive verb, and so on – and then look at the sentence and try to determine which of those seems most appropriate. If there’s no time, then it can’t be marking a time. If there’s no passive verb, then it can’t be marking the agent of a passive verb, and so on.
Now let’s consider the sentence in the article. ばれる is an intransitive verb. It simply means for something to “leak out.” Xがばれる means “X leaks out.” It can leak out “to” someone in the sense of becoming known to them. XがYにばれる means “X leaks out to Y.”
So, to answer your other question, no, this definitely could not mean “it must not become exposed by the humans,” because there is no passive verb here.
Does that help?
Follow up question
Hmm … your explanation was certainly understandable and very much appreciated.
So, is it safe to say that the particle に takes on the meaning of “by” in only a Passive Verb situation (and with that evil sibling the Causative-Passive verb)?
Reply
That’s the biggest one. However, it’s probably not safe to say that に will never correspond to “by” except when marking the agent of a passive verb, because に and “by” are both words that appear everywhere. Consider that “by” is doing something totally different in each of these: “It was written by Mark,” “It’s by the stove,” “She’s an office worker by day, but a superhero by night,” and “I like to learn by doing.”
The point is that the word is just used in so many contexts that it’s likely that there are other cases where one of them will overlap with one of the many contexts in which に can be used. So, while nothing specifically comes to mind right at the moment, I again urge you to think of に in terms of what it is doing in each case, by running down the list of things you know it can do. (In this way, you will also sometimes discover new things that に can do!)
I am now working on Hole in the Wall btw.
Piking up speed as I tend to read more these days .
However I do miss all the explanations, and I’m far from knowing what they “teach” you.
started Doraemon, got fed up (the contractions are tough), switched to Satori and was like, yeees, this works. My advice is, whatever you read, do a little every day, it worked wonders for me and is such a simple strategy. Glad to hear you’re enjoying it!
