15796
芥川龍之介's story 片恋 begins with the following sentence:

> 一しょに大学を出た親しい友だちの一人に、ある夏の午後[京浜電車]{けいひんでんしゃ}の中で[遇]{あ}ったら、こんな話を聞かせられた。

Perhaps because 聞く can mean both "to hear" and "to ask", and also because of
the causative conjugation of the verb, I'm not too sure of the correct
interpretation of 友だちに〜聞かせられた. Would anyone be able to provide some
clarification on how to parse this word? My guess would be to translate the
passage as follows:

> I heard this story one summer afternoon from a close friend with whom I had
> attended university, after we bumped into each other aboard a train from
> Yokohama.

聞かせられた appears to mean "was caused to hear". Is this as circumlocutious in
Japanese as it would be in English? Could 聞かれた or 聞いた be used instead?
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2014-05-07T05:44:04.487
15791
2014-05-08T02:53:02.230
2014-05-07T06:25:34.647
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question
translation causation parsing
How to parse 友だちに〜聞かせられた?
As I think you already understand,

  * 聞かせる is causative form (使役）of 聞く, 聞かされる is the passive-causative form（使役受け身). 
  * Passive is often referred to as the "suffering" tense. The subject, the writer, is "suffering" from being made to either **ask** or **listen**.

If the verb clause is ~たら **and the action takes place in the past** then the
following expression cannot describe an action of the subject's volition.
**Asking** would be a volitional action. **Listening** (or being made to
listen) is not necessarily volitional(see note) and therefore:

"As a result of" meeting his friend on the train, the writer had to (or was
"made" to) listen to the following story [which his friend told him on the
journey]....

I would read the sentence as:

> 友達に_遭ったらこんな話を聞かせられた

rather than

> 友達に________聞かせられた

because the second event was result of the first.

聞いた fits to the extent that the writer still hears the story but you lose the
nuance that he had to listen because (I imagine) he could not get off the
train and he could not ignore his friend who would not shut up/who was very
upset and wanted someone to listen to him(whatever), so I doubt it is
circumlocutious but these phrases can be difficult to translate directly.

Note: You could argue that that if the verb is passive-causative then neither
action is volitional but "made to listen" is less volitional and more natural
than "made to ask".
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2014-05-07T11:36:08.520
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2014-05-08T02:53:02.230
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answer