#1 村上春樹『国境の南、太陽の西』
僕が生まれたのは一九五一年の一月四日だ。二十世紀の後半の最初の年の最初の月の最初の週ということになる。記念的といえば記念的と言えなくもない。そのおかげで、僕は「始(はじめ)」という名前を与えられることになった。
I was born on January 4th 1951. That makes it the first week of the first month of the first year of the second half of the 20th century. If you want to call it memorable you can call it memorable. Owing to this, I was given the name Hajime.
Vocabulary:
村上春樹 むらかみはるき Murakami Haruki (author, 1949-)
国境 こっきょう (national) border
南 みなみ south
太陽 たいよう the sun
西 にし west
僕 ぼく I (only used by mostly educated male)
生まれた うまれた was born (passive form of 生む ‘to give birth’)
~年 ねん indicates year
一月 いちがつ January
四日 よっか here: the 4th (of the month)
世紀 せいき century
後半 こうはん second half
最初 さいしょ the first, the very first
年 とし year (notice the different reading from ~年)
月 つき month
週 しゅう week
記念的 きねんてき memorable, something to commemorate
名前 なまえ name
与えられる あたえられる be given (passive form of 与える ‘to give’)
Grammar:
~ことになる
Often added after a verb to indicate a result or an explanation. Here it means ‘that makes it…’ or ‘this means that it was…’.
~といえば~と言えなくもない
Literally this means ‘if you say it’s…it’s not that you cannot say it’s…’. A difficult sentence to wrap your head around, but best translated as ‘if you want to call it…you could’. This type of circumlocutive language is typical of Murakami’s writing style.
~ことになった
This slightly differs from the previous ~ことになる. Here it means ‘it was decided that…’ or ‘circumstances resulted in…’.
生まれる vs. 与えられる (passive forms)
You might wonder why these two passive forms look slightly different. It’s important to keep in mind that these verbs belong to different verb groups. 生む belongs to group 1, whereas 与える belongs to group 2. (Verbs from group 3 that end in ~いる behave in the same way as verbs from group 2.)
The passive form of verbs is ~れる for verbs from group 1 and ~られる for verbs from groups 2 and 3, and always follows the mizenkei form of the verb. Verbs from group 1 in the mizenkei form always end in an ‘a’ sound; in the case of group 2 and 3 verbs, simply subtract the る to make the mizenkei form.
Group 1 生む → 生ま (=mizenkei) + れる = 生まれる
Group 2 与える → 与え (=mizenkei) + られる = 与えられる
Group 3 用いる → 用い (=mizenkei) + られる = 用いられる