18579
こんばんは。I am new to learning Japanese and this website. I usually try to learn
things of my own initiative, by searching up specific things I don't
understand and trying to make sense of them myself. However, since I began
teaching myself this language I have begun to come across many roadblocks and
such with slang, colloquial expressions and the like, so I've come to the
conclusion that I really do need help with these specific problems.

With that, my problem at the moment is that I came across the phrase
こんなことが、あっていいのか……？which I can tell means something along the lines of "These
kinds of events... are they really okay?" but I can not for the life of me
figure out what the あって means in this case. I've heard of あっての meaning
something like "thanks to X, Y" and I know that the て form of ある would be あって,
but it doesn't seem like either of these things are related to this situation.
Any help is greatly appreciated! ありがとございます！
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-09-06T02:03:08.667
18578
2014-09-06T02:55:57.403
7214
question
grammar usage て-form
How is あって being used in this context?
In this context, 「て」 ＝ 「ても」. In informal speech, 「て」 is often used instead of
「ても」.

What is 「ても」, then? It is a compound of two particles used to express
"permission" or "tolerance". Both of the following phrases mean "It is OK to
~~", "It is OK if ~~" with the first one being more informal than the second.

> 「～～て（も）いい」
>
> 「～～て（も）かまわない」

Thus, your phrase 「こんなことが、あっていいのか……？」 means:

> "Is it OK (Should it be allowed) if something like this happens?".

The antonymous expressions ("It is not OK to ~~"), in the order of
informality, are:

> 「～～てはいけない」
>
> 「～～てはならない」

Note that in the negative forms, the 「は」 in 「ては」 is rarely omitted.

Finally, if you want to speak and write "natural" Japanese, you do not say
ありがとう before someone actually replies. In Japanese, we say that only when
service has been rendered.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-09-06T02:50:12.790
18579
2014-09-06T02:55:57.403
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
-1
18578
answer