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I found this sentence

言ってみただけだよ

and it is translated to

I'm just tried to say / I'm just saying

I don't understand why and I have a feeling it's because of みた. I know that みた is "to see" in the past, but maybe it's something else here?

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  • 3
    "just for the heck of it"
    – user4032
    Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 10:37
  • 2
    みる is one of the Japanese subsidiary verbs. See: What is a subsidiary verb?
    – naruto
    Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 12:13
  • @naruto thanks, very confusing with all the TE form
    – Smiled_One
    Commented Dec 8, 2016 at 8:56

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〜てみた is the past tense of 〜てみる "to try to [verb]", e.g.

食べてみる
to try to eat / to taste / to try [some food]

言ってみただけ usually means something like "just kidding". Of course, literally it means "I only tried to say it [because I thought it might be funny]".

It's also a common way to backtrack and try to turn an inappropriate comment into something you "only said for fun", and it's usually not clear whether or not you were serious at the time.

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  • Now I see, it's the thing that contact two different words with a Te form. It's so confusing, I thought they are two different words
    – Smiled_One
    Commented Dec 8, 2016 at 8:59

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