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Nagoyankee (Offline)
中庸を得るのだ~
 
Posts: 2,119
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Tokyo, Japan
10-23-2009, 02:30 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by charizardpal View Post
Hi I'm a student of Japanese and I had a quick question--is it grammatical to conjugate taberu (to eat) as "食べさせられられた?" (Tabe-sase-rare-rareta?) Would that mean, '(someone or something) made him able to eat?'
No, that is not a grammatical sentence. It's called a tongue twister!

You will never see a られられる or られられた in correctly written Japanese for as long as you live.

食べさせられた is the correct form and it can mean two very different things.

1. I was able to make (someone) eat (something) that he hates to eat.
or, I was able to make (someone sick and with no appetite) eat a decent size meal.

2. I was able to bring home the bread. (I had a steady income.)
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