kaeru totyuu de yuudati ni hurarete, syatu ga nuretyatta.

途中 means in the middle of, on the way, or during. Before 途中, Japanese usually uses the dictionary form of the verb to show what action or movement is in progress.

So:

• 帰る途中 = on the way home / while returning
• 食べる途中 = in the middle of eating
• 行く途中 = on the way there

Using 帰った途中 would sound unnatural here, because 帰った suggests the action has already been completed, while 途中 describes something happening before completion.

帰る途中で means on the way home or more literally during the process of going home.

Breakdown:

• 帰る = to return, to go home
• 途中 = the middle of something, the way
• で = marks the time/situation/location in which something happened

So the whole phrase sets the scene for what happened next:
While I was on my way home...

The で marks the situation or occasion in which the next event happened.

In this sentence:

• 帰る途中で = while on the way home
• then something happened: 夕立に降られて

You can think of で here as marking the circumstance:
in the middle of going home, this other event occurred.

A similar pattern appears in sentences like:

• 仕事中で電話できない would be wrong, but
• 仕事中に or 仕事中で事故があった depending on the structure

With 途中, 途中で is very common when you mean something happened along the way.

夕立 means a sudden evening shower, often a short but heavy rain that happens in the late afternoon or evening, especially in summer.

So it is more specific than just:

• 雨 = rain

夕立 gives a more vivid image: a sudden downpour that catches you unexpectedly.

Here, に marks the thing that affected the speaker.

• 夕立に降られる literally means something like to be rained on by a sudden shower

This is a common pattern with weather:

• 雨に降られる = to get caught in the rain
• 雪に降られる = to get snowed on

So に marks the source/cause of the unwanted experience.

Yes. 降られて is the て-form of the passive verb 降られる, from 降る.

Basic steps:

• 降る = to fall, to rain
• 降られる = passive form
• 降られて = て-form of that passive

But this is not just a plain passive in the English sense. It is what learners often call the adversity passive or suffering passive.

It expresses that the speaker was negatively affected by the rain.

So:

• 夕立が降った = a sudden shower fell
• 夕立に降られた = I got caught in a sudden shower / I was rained on

The second one adds the nuance that this was inconvenient or unfortunate for the speaker.

Because the sentence is focused on the speaker being affected by the rain, not just on the fact that rain happened.

Compare:

• 夕立が降った = It rained / A sudden shower came
• 夕立に降られた = I got caught in the rain / I was unfortunately rained on

The passive form makes it feel more personal and slightly unfortunate. It is very natural in Japanese when something unwanted happens to you.

The て-form links the two parts of the sentence:

1. 夕立に降られて = I got caught in a sudden shower
2. シャツがぬれちゃった = my shirt got soaked / ended up wet

It works like and, so, or as a result depending on context.

Here the relationship is basically cause and result:

• I got caught in a sudden shower, and so my shirt got wet.

Yes. ぬれちゃった is a casual spoken contraction of ぬれてしまった.

Breakdown:

• ぬれる = to get wet
• ぬれて = te-form
• しまった = indicates completion, and often regret, inconvenience, or an unwanted result
• ぬれてしまった → casual spoken ぬれちゃった

So ぬれちゃった means more than just got wet. It often suggests:

• ended up getting wet
• got wet unfortunately
• oops, it got wet

That fits this sentence well, because getting caught in a sudden shower is unpleasant.

Because the sentence is describing the shirt’s change of state, not an action done to the shirt by the speaker.

• ぬれる = to get wet (intransitive)
• ぬらす = to wet something (transitive)

So:

• シャツがぬれちゃった = the shirt got wet
• シャツをぬらしちゃった = I wet the shirt / I got the shirt wet

In this sentence, the shirt became wet because of the rain, so ぬれる is the natural choice.

Because ぬれる is an intransitive verb, and the thing that undergoes the change is marked with が.

So:

• シャツがぬれる = the shirt gets wet

This is not a direct object, so を is not used.

A good comparison:

• ドアが開く = the door opens
• ドアを開ける = open the door

Likewise:

• シャツがぬれる = the shirt gets wet
• シャツをぬらす = wet the shirt

Not always, but it very often carries one of these nuances:

• completion
• something happened unintentionally
• mild regret or annoyance
• emotional reaction such as oh no

In this sentence, it strongly suggests inconvenience or disappointment, because having your shirt soaked by a sudden shower is usually unpleasant.

In other contexts, 〜ちゃった can be more neutral:

• 宿題やっちゃった = I finished my homework
• 忘れちゃった = I forgot it

So the exact nuance depends on context.

Yes. In many contexts, 帰る is naturally translated as go home or return, so 帰る途中で can be understood as:

• while going home
• on the way back

The exact English wording depends on the situation, but the Japanese simply means that the speaker had not arrived yet and was still in the process of returning.

The verb can be written as 濡れる, so the full form would be シャツが濡れちゃった.

But in everyday Japanese, especially in casual writing, many common verbs are often written partly or fully in hiragana. This can make the sentence look softer and easier to read.

So both are possible:

• 濡れちゃった
• ぬれちゃった

The hiragana version is very normal in casual contexts.

It is casual, everyday spoken Japanese.

Clues:

• ぬれちゃった instead of ぬれてしまった
• plain forms like 降られて and 帰る

A more formal version could be:

• 帰る途中で夕立に降られて、シャツが濡れてしまいました。

That sounds more polite, but the original sentence is perfectly natural in conversation.

Yes. Japanese often omits the subject when it is understood from context.

This sentence does not explicitly say 私 or 僕, but the meaning is naturally understood as something like:

• I got caught in a sudden shower on the way home, and my shirt got wet.

The speaker is implied because:

• 降られて describes an experience affecting someone
• シャツがぬれちゃった sounds like the speaker is talking about their own situation

Japanese frequently leaves out I, you, and he/she when context makes them obvious.