Breakdown of watasi ha mettani okoranai ga, daizina yakusoku wo nando mo wasurerareru to komaru.
Questions & Answers about watasi ha mettani okoranai ga, daizina yakusoku wo nando mo wasurerareru to komaru.
Why is は used after 私?
は marks 私 as the topic: as for me.
In this sentence, 私は sets up the speaker as the person being described across the whole sentence:
- 私は めったに怒らない
- 私は ... 困る
Japanese often states the topic once and then leaves it understood for the rest of the sentence.
Why is めったに used with a negative verb?
Because めったに usually goes with a negative form and means rarely / hardly ever.
So:
- めったに怒らない = hardly ever get angry
- めったに行かない = hardly ever go
Using めったに with a positive verb is generally unnatural in standard Japanese.
What nuance does 怒らない have here?
怒らない is the plain non-past negative form of 怒る.
Here, it does not mean only will not get angry in the future. With めったに, it expresses a habitual fact:
- I do not usually get angry
- I’m not someone who gets angry often
So it is more about the speaker’s general tendency than one specific moment.
What does が mean here? Is it just but?
Yes, here が works like but or however.
It connects two ideas:
- I rarely get angry
- but there is an exception or limit
This が is slightly more formal or written-sounding than けど. In casual speech, many people might say けど instead.
Why is it 大事な約束 and not 大事い約束?
Because 大事 is a na-adjective.
Na-adjectives use な before a noun:
- 大事な約束 = an important promise
- 静かな部屋 = a quiet room
So the な is the normal way to connect 大事 to 約束.
What does 何度も mean, and what is the role of も?
何度も means many times, repeatedly, or over and over.
The も adds the sense of even that many times / as many as that and is part of a very common expression:
- 何度も言う = say it many times
- 何度も見る = watch repeatedly
So you can think of 何度も as a set phrase meaning repeatedly.
Is 忘れられる passive or potential here?
Here it is best understood as the passive, more specifically the adversative/passive of being affected.
So the idea is not someone can forget. It is more like:
- someone forgets important promises, and I am affected by that
This passive often carries a nuance that the speaker is inconvenienced, annoyed, or negatively affected.
That fits well with 困る later in the sentence.
Why is 約束 marked with を even though 忘れられる is passive?
This is a very common learner question.
In a basic direct passive, you often get something like:
- 約束が忘れられる = the promise is forgotten
But this sentence is an adversative passive, where the speaker is the affected person:
- 私は(誰かに)約束を忘れられる
Here:
- 私は = the person affected
- 約束を = the thing that gets forgotten
- the doer is omitted
So を stays on 約束 because the sentence is built around I am adversely affected by someone forgetting the promise, not around the promise itself as the grammatical subject.
Who is the person doing the forgetting? Why isn’t it stated?
The doer is omitted because Japanese often leaves it out when it is understood from context.
The full idea could be something like:
- 私は(相手に)大事な約束を何度も忘れられると困る
So the person doing the forgetting is usually:
- the other person
- someone the speaker is dealing with
- whoever is relevant in context
Japanese very often omits subjects and agents when they are obvious or not important to state explicitly.
What does 〜と困る mean here?
〜と困る is a common pattern meaning:
- it causes a problem if ...
- I would be troubled if ...
- that would be a problem
The と is the conditional if / when.
So 何度も忘れられると困る means that if that kind of thing happens, the speaker is troubled or bothered.
This is often softer than saying something very directly like それは許せない or repeating 怒る. It expresses inconvenience or distress in a natural Japanese way.
Why is the verb non-past in 忘れられると困る if this is about repeated actions?
Japanese often uses the non-past form for:
- general truths
- habitual situations
- conditional statements
So 忘れられると困る does not mean only if someone will forget at one future point. It means more generally:
- if someone keeps doing that
- when that happens
- if that kind of situation occurs
Because the sentence is talking about a general condition, the non-past form is the natural choice.
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