Hi! I just came across this example sentence while studying: 本当の事を言った事を後悔している The translation attached was: “I regret telling you the truth.” Is the double を the best way to write that sentence?
I don’t see a particular problem with it. 「本当の事を言った事」is the ~~subject~~ object.
The first を is part of a clause that modifies the 事 before the second を, you can use one を per clause.
Yeah bro. We can say it’s a more abstract use of the language which sound completely natural to natives and people who already have a long time studying japanese.
In this case they’re using を correctly they’re literally saying I regret the fact to have said the truth (to you).
So they’re abstracting the action of “saying” smth and on top of that they’re using 後悔 as a verb.
本当の事を言った事を後悔している。
The first part is: the truth of a fact “literally speaking” What happened to that? It was said “言った” but they’re objectifying the action with “事” and then they used the last verb to say that they regret it.
Another example could be
テレビを見る人を見ている
We have two “を” here they have the same usage but the sintaxis is different.
I think that sentence is perfectly fine grammar wise, but I would have said something like 本当の事を言って後悔している personally
But again, I’ve only been learning Japanese for 8 months, so don’t trust me too much lol.
It’s good and coming from a programming background it makes more sense to me than how we handle these things in English. Although I’ve seen a guy write a long 2-3 paragraph comment and in one of the the paragraphs he chained a sentence together with 3-を’s, I got completely lost in what it meant but just broke it down in its individual smaller sentences and it was fine.
Yes, that is the best way, just like your English translation contains two direct objects: “telling you the truth” (the direct object of “regret”) and “the truth” (the direct object of “telling”).
[[[本当の事]を言った]事]を後悔している [The thing of [[the true thing] that was said]] is being regretted
It sounds weird in English when you directly translate it, but logically there’s nothing wrong with it in Japanese.
This sentence is natural and grammatically correct. I think it’s the best way to describe the situation.
Basically, this is, in fact, two sentences: 本当の事を言った and 事を後悔している, with the former modifying the 事 on the latter.
本当の事を言う means to say the truth
(本当の事を言った)事 means “telling the truth” (in the past)
the second 事 refers to telling the truth
(本当の事を言った)事を後悔している 後悔する means to regret they mean “I regret telling the truth” or “I regret that I told the truth”.
you just gotta break it down and it all makes perfect sense.
10 comments
I don’t see a particular problem with it. 「本当の事を言った事」is the ~~subject~~ object.
The first を is part of a clause that modifies the 事 before the second を, you can use one を per clause.
Yeah bro. We can say it’s a more abstract use of the language which sound completely natural to natives and people who already have a long time studying japanese.
In this case they’re using を correctly they’re literally saying I regret the fact to have said the truth (to you).
So they’re abstracting the action of “saying” smth and on top of that they’re using 後悔 as a verb.
本当の事を言った事を後悔している。
The first part is: the truth of a fact “literally speaking”
What happened to that? It was said “言った” but they’re objectifying the action with “事” and then they used the last verb to say that they regret it.
Another example could be
テレビを見る人を見ている
We have two “を” here they have the same usage but the sintaxis is different.
I think that sentence is perfectly fine grammar wise, but I would have said something like 本当の事を言って後悔している personally
But again, I’ve only been learning Japanese for 8 months, so don’t trust me too much lol.
It’s good and coming from a programming background it makes more sense to me than how we handle these things in English. Although I’ve seen a guy write a long 2-3 paragraph comment and in one of the the paragraphs he chained a sentence together with 3-を’s, I got completely lost in what it meant but just broke it down in its individual smaller sentences and it was fine.
Yes, that is the best way, just like your English translation contains two direct objects: “telling you the truth” (the direct object of “regret”) and “the truth” (the direct object of “telling”).
[[[本当の事]を言った]事]を後悔している
[The thing of [[the true thing] that was said]] is being regretted
It sounds weird in English when you directly translate it, but logically there’s nothing wrong with it in Japanese.
This sentence is natural and grammatically correct. I think it’s the best way to describe the situation.
Basically, this is, in fact, two sentences: 本当の事を言った and 事を後悔している, with the former modifying the 事 on the latter.
本当の事を言う
means to say the truth
(本当の事を言った)事
means “telling the truth” (in the past)
the second 事 refers to telling the truth
(本当の事を言った)事を後悔している
後悔する means to regret
they mean “I regret telling the truth” or “I regret that I told the truth”.
you just gotta break it down and it all makes perfect sense.