死ぬ
 

Hi, I would like to know why 死ぬ use で as particle most of the time?


銃傷で死ぬ
die from a bullet wound

栄養失調で死ぬ
die of malnutrition

旅先で死ぬ
die on one's journey

大地震で死ぬ
die in a massive earthquake

I like to read the particle で as "by means of", that most of the times helps understanding why using で.

Anyway, I speak Italian, roughly I can say English, a little bit of Spanish, French and Japanese...take my advice: try not to literally translate prepositions. Unfortunately preposition is the thing that messes up students of a language because they are always used different in every language.

What particle would you think it would take? "To die" is not a transitive verb, so it cannot use を.

Hi KyleGoetz san. It has never crossed my mind that を should be used. Instead I was thinking if I can use に instead of で？

The simple answer is just "you don't use に here".

But maybe it will help you to think of に as denoting kind of a "target" for an action/verb, and you don't ... die toward malnutrition or something like that...

But even after reading what I just wrote I don't really think it can sum up all the differences between the two since they are just... really extremely different.

Here で is showing you the manner/method/reason for dying.
Since you die from/of malnutrition or because of your malnutrition.

It's not just constricted to "by (means of)", but this translation of で can be pretty encompassing I think.

Thanks for explaining it to me, I will try to analyze the differences with the informations you provided. :)