88821
In a book I'm reading I found this sentence:

> 歩くと音が出る幼児向け玩具{おもちゃ} **に** 僕みたいなのがあったような気がする

I understand it, "I feel there was a children toy which made sounds when you
walked, like me"; the character is a robot which hears a sound in her head
when she moves around, so that meaning does make sense, but I can't understand
why that に after おもちゃ.

As context for what comes next, the character is working in a junkyard with no
children around.

I tried looking up meaning for に, like [on
Jisho](https://jisho.org/word/%E3%81%AB), and 6 ("as (i.e. in the role of)​")
could make sense, but I'm not sure that's the case, nor I'm sure how to insert
it in my translation: what would be in the role of a toy? From the sentence it
seems that the character is saying that the toy made a sound when the children
walked, like her is doing now, not that her herself is in some way "in the
role of" a toy - there are not even children where she is.

Beside that meaning, I have no idea what that に could mean; I understand
something has to be between おもちゃ and 僕, I'm not sure why に.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-07T19:05:39.370
88817
2021-08-08T05:19:09.113
35362
question
grammar particles particle-に
に in comparison
Strictly speaking it may be
[比較・割合の基準や、比較の対象を表す。](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%81%AB/#jn-166083).
It shows the realm of things (= a type of toys) when the speaker thinks of
things similar to himself (僕のような）.

But I think you can consider the に in the sentence as a generalized version of
the most common use, that is _the places where actions are taken_. In the
sentence of the question, it is not a physical place, but a category of toys
in the speaker's mind.

For example the following (with 場所の「に」) has almost the same structure:

  * 新宿にそういう店があった気がする : I vaguely remember that in Shinjuku there was a shop like that.

===

A few notes:

  * the subject of 歩く is 玩具
  * 僕みたいな **の** = 僕みたいな玩具

A(n awkward) translation would be

_I feel that among those children's toys that make sounds when they walk there
was a toy like me._
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-08T05:19:09.113
88821
2021-08-08T05:19:09.113
45489
88817
answer