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I'm pretty sure `～れに～れて` is a grammar form that I have studied in my JLPT
textbooks, but I came across it again in a text and I can't for the life of me
find it again in my grammar dictionaries. I also looked on
[JGram](http://dev.jgram.org/pages/viewList.php), but couldn't find it there.

The particular case I came across was:

> 人間{にんげん}は昔{むかし}、遅{おく}れに遅{おく}れて自{みずか}らの年{とし}を自覚{じかく}する。

Without knowing what `遅{おく}れに遅{おく}れて` is doing, I feel I'm missing an
important nuance.

I think it's something like, "From long ago, people have been slow to be
conscious of their own age." But how is the above sentence different from this
one:

> 人間{にんげん}は昔{むかし}、遅{おそ}くて自{みずか}らの年{とし}を自覚{じかく}する。

...?
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2012-05-09T06:17:50.587
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grammar
What does 遅れに遅れて mean?
This is one example of the common pattern: V1 + ni + V2. Both V1 and V2 are
the same verb; however, V1 in in 連用形 (adverbial, conjunctive form)*. It
expresses emphasis or that an event continued for a long time. You may
generally remove the (V1 + ni) portion without loosing much of the semantic
meaning. A much more common example is 待ちに待った.

*連用形: The form of the verb that -masu attaches to. yom-u --> yomi(masu), tabe-ru --> tabe(masu) This should really go into a FAQ.
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2012-05-09T12:44:23.073
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An attempt to answer your question about how the two sentences are different:

遅くて means something like "because it's late" and doesn't make much sense in
the sentence.

遅く might make more sense semantically, but doesn't seem to put enough emphasis
on the being late "Long ago, humans become conscious of their age late". The
"late" doesn't quite know what it wants (Sorry, can't explain this much
better).

遅れに遅れて tries to capture the sense of "finally" or "after much delay" and
therefore implies that man should have become conscious about his age earlier.
"Long ago, humans finally become conscious of their age".

It would be easier to be certain if I had more context for your sentence.
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2012-05-10T00:44:28.553
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answer
My apologies if someone already noticed this, but I believe the actual
sentence was:

> 「人間は **皆** 、遅れに遅れて自らの年を自覚する。」

That would explain why people got confused over 昔. I just came across the same
unknown phrase in 短期マスター日本語能力試験ドリルN1.
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2012-10-06T16:17:56.410
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