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Does Aに助かりました mean that you were saved from A, or you were saved by A?

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I think your expression is ungrammatical unless Aに is something not directly related to the predicate. It does not mean either of what you suggest. – sawa Jul 29 '11 at 7:56
So how do you say 1) you were saved from something and 2) you were saved by something? – language hacker Jul 29 '11 at 8:15
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@languagae_hacker 1) ...から助けられました or ...から助かりました 2) ...に助けられました – sawa Jul 29 '11 at 8:18
Did you randomly come up with the sentence, or did you happen to pick it up somewhere in a native literature? – syockit Aug 25 '11 at 6:03

closed as not a real question by sawa, Troyen, jkerian♦, Tsuyoshi Ito, Dono Sep 20 '12 at 12:47

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1 Answer

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助かる is an intransitive verb which means "to be saved".

Aに助かりました would mean "At the point of time/space of A, you were saved.(No agent is implied in the statement. It just means you were saved)"

Much like 窓が開く, it would mean "the window opens" without implying any agent.

Then consider ３時に窓が開く, it would mean "the window opens at 3 o'clock"

(Agent: one who initiates and/or completes an action or event)

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I suppose it means に can't be used to point at the agent for this particular verb. – syockit Aug 25 '11 at 6:02

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