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The Sentence:

Recently, I've been trying to broaden my understanding of Japanese by stumbling through translating some blog posts. I came across this sentence:

見に来てくださった方、
チームAのことも、私のことも、
好きになってもらえたかなー？

For a bit of context, the writer is talking about a concert event that various people attended, and she (appears to be) asking them if they liked it. But any nuance beyond that is lost on me.

Things I don't understand:

There are three main things I don't get about this sentence:

1) How does the middle clause (チームAのことも、私のことも) connect with the other two clauses, i.e. is it the object of 見? The "subject" (i.e. ～が) of 好き? Both? Something else entirely?

2) Why is the middle clause 何のことも何のことも rather than just 何も何も ? What does のこと add?

3) Everything about the final clause. I think I understand some of the pieces (好きになって ～ come to like, come to love; もらえる ability (and willingness) to receive something, presumably here a helping verb like もらう and くれる that indicates who benefits from the action rather than describing an action on its own but... what does that mean here?; か question particle; な emphasis), but I have no idea how they are meant to go together.

Somehow all these together add up to "Did those of you who came to watch team A and me like/love (it/what you saw/etc.)?" (Per my own analysis and that of a Japanese teacher, though she didn't have time to explain further.)

What I'm looking for

My main concern is understanding what is going on here and how the pieces fit together, so I can understand it if I see something like it again, and so I can use the same constructions myself. I'd especially like references to specific discussions on these words/structures, whether on the web or in printed books (as long as they aren't too obscure) so I can investigate on my own (I did some already but didn't turn up much).

Secondarily, I'd also love pointers on how to translate sentences like this.

Wlerin
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1 Answers1

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見に来てくださった方、
チームAのことも、私のことも、
好きになってもらえたかなー？
Lit. "I wonder if those of you who kindly came to watch ended up enjoying both Team A and myself...?"
"Thanks everyone for attending! Did you enjoy Team A's and my performances?"

  1. 「チームAのこと」 and 「私のこと」 are the "〜が-marked objects" of 「好きになる」.

    「見に来てくださった方」 is the "subject" of 「好きになる」, that is, the people who are experiencing the 好き.

  2. 「〜のこと」 makes it so they are not asking if you literally came to like the team and the her, but something related to them, such as their performance, act, song, etc.

  3. Your analysis was correct, aside from it not being the question 「か」 + emphasis 「な」, but rather the speculative ending 「かな」.

    The usage of 「〜もらえた」 is, as you expected, as a supplementary verb which makes it so the speaker indicates that the action is beneficial for them. It isn't easy to gloss this in English, but something like "Were you kind enough to like it?" sort of has the same feeling.

Hopefully this helps you understand. My only comment on how to translate sentences like this is you mostly need to abandon the syntax of the Japanese to retain the right feel. Also, note that this is rather girly speech, so I would warn against copying it exactly if you aren't trying to sound girly.

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Darius Jahandarie
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  • Notably, こと can't be a subject, so adding 〜のこと forces the listener to understand it as a nominative object (but here with nominative が replaced with も). –  Oct 24 '14 at 16:42
  • s/a subject/an experiencer or an agent/, and I agree. :-) こと can definitely be the grammatical subject of passives and of some predicates, such as 彼のことが分かる、彼のことが心配だ、彼のことが恋しい、彼のことが頭から離れない. I suppose you could consider these nominative objects, but it seems odd to do that in the case of passives. – Darius Jahandarie Oct 24 '14 at 17:58
  • What about it, besides the ～かな, is girly? Also, thank you for explaining this. I have a few other questions, but will have to return later to ask them. – Wlerin Oct 24 '14 at 23:06
  • @Wlerin Hmm. Aside from that, there isn't any one specific thing, but overall it feels like something an アイドル would say due to the respectful but simultaneously casual tone combined with the somewhat cutesy question. But this is just my impression of it, and I'm not a native speaker, so who knows. – Darius Jahandarie Oct 25 '14 at 02:38