73813
> 小さかった頃、ハリーは誰か見知らぬ親戚が自分を **迎えにやってくる** ことを何度も何度も夢見た。  
>  When he was little Harry dreamed over and over of unknown relatives
> _greeting him_.

Obviously the 'greeting him' part is wrong. I'm not sure I fully understand
迎えにやってくる.

I'm assuming this is the

> masu-stem + に + motion verb

construct, where やってくる is treated as a motion verb. I usually translate やってくる
as 'turn up/show up'. So 親戚が自分を迎えにやってくること would be "relatives showing up to
greet/meet/welcome him".

Perhaps my real problem is with understanding how to translate 迎える. The
English original for this sentence is "relations coming to take him away". But
I'm struggling to see how to relate 迎える with 'take away'.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-08T22:59:52.243
73809
2020-01-09T02:16:04.193
7944
question
grammar meaning
Meaning of 迎えにやってくる
Seems it would help you greatly if you could get your mind off the definition
"greeting" for a moment because it will not apply here.

「迎{むか}えに（やって）くる」 can only mean one thing, which is " **to come pick one up**
(to take one somewhere)".

Only when it is in the form 「[Person] +を + 迎える」, 「迎える」 can mean "to
greet/meet/welcome [Person]".

「迎えにいく」 and 「迎えにくる」 should be remembered as set phrases (and those are used
**_very_** frequently).
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-09T02:16:04.193
73813
2020-01-09T02:16:04.193
73809
answer