24631
I was reading a Japanese text, and came across this piece of dialogue :
"なんで他人とケンカするの" "なんでって...売られるからだよ.売れられたケンカは買う.そんだけだ." But I really can't seem
to understand what the second person is trying to say by "売られる" ? "売る" is
supposed to mean "to sell", is he trying to say that fighting sells basically
? I also can't seem to understand what the text is saying by "は買う", even
though it means "to buy" technically. I just really can't understand the use
of these two verbs here.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-29T21:34:57.563
24629
2015-05-29T22:05:59.040
10210
question
meaning usage verbs expressions
売る exact usage/meaning
Learning phrases like 喧嘩を売る 喧嘩を買う is a hard part of any language because they
are often not even thought to be idioms or set phrases. So you will not find
them in a ことわざ book or a 四字熟語 book. In the case of 喧嘩, you might find example
sentences in the regular dictionary entry for 喧嘩, but for any language, not
only Japanese, it is good to also have a collocation reference. Here is one I
have read before and found interesting:

[http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4053021308/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=187205609&pf_rd_s=lpo-
top-
stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=476749110X&pf_rd_m=AN1VRQENFRJN5&pf_rd_r=1K9HDZB77C24P5B2HDST](http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4053021308/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=187205609&pf_rd_s=lpo-
top-
stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=476749110X&pf_rd_m=AN1VRQENFRJN5&pf_rd_r=1K9HDZB77C24P5B2HDST)

But really any will do. It's very interesting to see which nouns and verbs go
together and the different meanings you get when you combine them.

In this specific situation

> 喧嘩を売る

means to pick a fight / throw down the gauntlet, and

> 喧嘩を買う

means the opposite of "back down": to accept a challenge
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-29T21:58:35.507
24631
2015-05-29T22:05:59.040
2015-05-29T22:05:59.040
10194
10194
24629
answer