I came across the following sentence in my textbook, 新完全マスターN2 文法, and I can't understand the part in bold font:
チャンスがあってはじめて、才能が生きてくるのではないだろうか。
I looked up the expression 才能が生きる just in case it was some sort of idiom to no avail. However, I was able to find two different entries at HiNative.com (see here and here) asking about the meaning of the exact sentence. In the first entry, they paraphrase the original sentence as follows:
チャンスが訪れてやっと、ようやく才能を役立てることができるのではないだろうか。
In the second entry, they instead give an explanation for the meaning of the whole sentence:
才能がある人でも、それを使う機会がなければ、才能を持っていても活用できないだろう。
From these explanations, I could infer that in the sentence at issue, 才能が生きる roughly means "talent becomes available":
It's not until you've got a chance, that your talent (becomes available / shines? / comes to you?)
Moreover, I've found at Jisho.org that 生きる can signify "to exist" besides "to live" (1st entry), as well as "to come to life; to be enlivened" (4th entry):
生{い}きる
1 - to live; to exist
4 - to come to life; to be enlivened
I can see how both words are somewhat similar, where "exist" is more general and "live" more particular (only for living beings) so maybe in the Japanese side of things there is no such distinction between "exist" and "live" (or if there is, it's blurrier) when it comes to 生きる. But the definition that fits better, in my opinion, is perhaps "4 - to be enlivened, invigorated, energized" (I added the last synonyms)":
It's not until you've got a chance, that your talent comes to life.
These are my questions:
- What does 生きる exactly mean in 才能が生きてくる?
- Is 才能が生きる an idiom?
- Can you provide some example sentence that use 生きる similarly to 才能が生きる?