78395
I was almost towards the end of my bedtime [news
article](https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k10012491991000/k10012491991000.html)
when I got stumped by this sentence:

> 虫の専門家は「虫にかまれて、腫れたり痛かったりするときは、病院に相談してください。どこでかまれたのかわかると、 _
> **どんな虫が原因かわかることがある**_ ので伝えてください」と話しています。

To Japanese learners past the beginner level, it is known that [辞書形]+ことがある
roughly translates to "there are times that~" or "sometimes, ~". Somehow,
translating this sentence somehow using that translation doesn't make sense to
me. It appears to me that the sentence translate to:

> "If **you** know where you got bitten, **you** may know what bug was the
> cause (of the bite) [or " **you** may know what bug bit you"], so please
> inform (tell) them."

Something seems to be off in this sentence. (I can't tell why though.) Or
should it be translated to

> "If **they** know where you got bitten, **they** may know what bug was the
> cause (of the bite) [or " **they** may know what bug bit you"], so please
> inform (tell) them."

Is this an example of a sentence with two clauses where the **implied**
subject changes halfway through? And speaking of implied subject, how can one
tell _in just one reading_ that the subject has changed midsentence? Or do
even native speakers of Japanese have to read a sentence twice just to realize
that the subject has changed?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-07-03T15:00:45.233
78390
2020-07-03T17:24:51.733
29327
question
grammar translation subjects
Translating どこでかまれたのかわかると、どんな虫が原因かわかることがあるので伝えてください。
The grammatical subject that corresponds to わかる is actually very explicit; the
subject is not "you" nor "they" but どんな虫が原因か, which is an [embedded
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/13038/5010). 分かる here means "to
become known; to turn out" (see the second definition
[here](https://jisho.org/word/%E5%88%86%E3%81%8B%E3%82%8B)). For example,
犯人が分かりました means "I found out who the criminal is" rather than "The criminal
understood it". This part can be written also as どんな虫が原因か **が** わかる, but を/が
after an embedded question is often omitted.

In the ～が分かる construction, who noticed the fact is not explicitly stated, and
it may or may not be inferred from the context. For example, you can say
ドアは閉じていたことが分かった ("It turned out that the door was closed") without saying who
noticed this fact. In your context, it is obviously the physician who may
notice the responsible bug. Therefore, a literal translation is "what bug is
the cause sometimes becomes clear", but you can rephrase it like "a physician
may notice which bug is the cause".
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-07-03T16:51:59.320
78395
2020-07-03T17:24:51.733
2020-07-03T17:24:51.733
5010
5010
78390
answer