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I'm tring to read a novel, but am completely dumbfounded with this sentence.
Context goes like this:

> A: {Suddenly stands up}
>
> B: 「どうしたんですか？」「トイレ？」
>
> C: 「わかんないとこがあった？ 私にわかるとこなら教えるけど？」

My questions are:

  * why is it あった and not ある? 
  * is こと completely interchangeable with とこ? I see a lot of them in the novel like this another one 俺は壊れたとこがある (which also a complete mystery of a sentence)
  * what is the meaning of 私 にわかる?
  * if 私 にわかる translated as "Want to know from me about it?" then why けど at the end which translates as _but/however_? (even if my translation of 私 にわかる it still doesn't make sence for me why it's translated like that)
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2019-09-12T17:00:52.990
71771
2019-09-12T21:25:10.377
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translation meaning
How can [わかんないとこがあった？ 私 にわかるとこなら 教 えるけど？] be translated?
* why is it あった and not ある? 

Presumably C (or somebody else) was describing something to A just a little
bit before this excerpt. As such, the あった refers to what was just said -- " _
**was** there something you **didn't** understand (in whatever was just talked
about previously)?_" If the speaker had used ある instead, the statement would
be a bit vaguer -- " _ **is** there something you **don't** understand (in
general, not necessarily in connection with whatever was just talked about
previously)?_"

  * is こと completely interchangeable with とこ? I see a lot of them in the novel like this another one 俺は壊れたとこがある (which also a complete mystery of a sentence)

No. とこ is a shortening or clipping of ところ.

  * what is the meaning of 私 にわかる?

わかる, like できる, is often translated into English in the active voice: _" **I**
understand something, **I** can do something"_. However, the Japanese words
more accurately describe a quality of the "something": _"something **is
understandable** to / by me, something **is doable** by me"_. This is why the
"something" in both わかる and できる sentences takes the subject particle が instead
of the object particle を. The agent (person or thing doing the action) in the
English sentences is the subject, and the patient (the "something") is the
object. However, in Japanese, the agent is the "something" that is the subject
marked with が, and there is no patient or object. Instead, we either use the
topic particle は for the person, or the instrumental ("by") particle に.

More broadly, わかる and できる are verbs of **potential** , which take this same
grammatical construction in Japanese. See more about potentials in this
question and its answers:

> [Why doesn't 分かる have a potential
> form?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/5988/why-
> doesnt-%e5%88%86%e3%81%8b%e3%82%8b-have-a-potential-form)

  * if 私 にわかる translated as "Want to know from me about it?" then why けど at the end which translates as _but/however_? (even if my translation of 私 にわかる it still doesn't make sence for me why it's translated like that)

See the previous point about the にわかる construction.

With that in mind, here's a breakdown word-by-word, then a reformulation of
that to get a translation in proper English.

> 私にわかるとこなら教えるけど  
>  me by understandable place/aspect if teach/explain but →  
>  If it's something I understand, I'll explain it [to you]...

* * *

Please comment if the above doesn't fully answer your questions.
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2019-09-12T17:28:22.750
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answer