2

How would one combine two or more quotes together?
In English we just do something like "He said 'Quote A', 'Quote B' and 'Quote C'".

In chat, snailboat gave these possibilities:

  1. 「Quote A」「Quote B」って言う
  2. 「Quote A」って、「Quote B」って言う
  3. 「Quote A」って(言う)、「Quote B」って言う
  4. 「Quote A」「Quote B」と言う
  5. 「Quote A」と「Quote B」と言う

Are these all valid?

1
  • To explain why I typed those: in chat, you asked if you could put と or って after each quote, so I was trying to think through how it would parse if you did that.
    – user1478
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 10:42

1 Answer 1

2

First I think in usage って is simply a colloquial version of と. Thus (2) and (5) are equivalent, and so are (1) and (4).

(3) has a 言う (in parentheses). Without 言う, it would just be the colloquial version of (5). With 言う (followed by a comma) it makes little grammatical sense: it should rather be 言って.

I think a universal format would be

「Quote A」(と)(言って)、「Quote B」と言う

where you can replace と with って in colloquial writing/speech and 言って would often be omitted. E.g.

みんなに「すごい」、「素晴らしい」と言われた。
みんなに「すごい」とか/ー、「素晴らしい」とか/って言われた。(casual)
Everyone was telling me "great" and "wonderful".

「今日は時間がない」から「また今度遊ぼうね」って律子ちゃんが言ってたけど、今度っていつなの?
Ritsuko told me "I don't have time, let's play together again next time", but when is next time?

In the second example the と does not mean "and". Rather, the quoting particle could be thrown in there to make sure that the first part is also a quote, which to the listener would not be obvious.

As an aside, as far as I understand the quoting particle と is enough to give a quotation. The brackets are inserted only for easier reading. (In particular, there is no clear distinction between "direct" and "indirect" quotations.)

Also, the quoting particle between the quotes can be omitted, but this works best when the quotes are short (usually one-word, see snailboat's examples in the comments) and it only works unambiguously in writing (or else, there is no difference between quoting 「しまった。イタい。やばい。」 and 「しまった」「イタい」「やばい」).

5
  • Does that mean you don't think 1 and 4 are valid? What about a real world example like 「冴えない」「ぱっとしない」「使えない(使いものにならない)」といった意味で使われる。 or 「しまった」「やばい」「イタイ」と思った?
    – user1478
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 12:22
  • @snailboat I was actually wondering what kind of quotes the OP was thinking of. I they are long, then I think they are better separated by と. If there is a list of short quotes, then even と can be omitted.
    – Earthliŋ
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 12:45
  • 日本語の例文、ちょっと変えてもいいですか?説明に影響するかもしれないので、どうしようかと思ってますけど。。。
    – user1016
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 16:03
  • @Chocolate 例文がおかしければ、説明にはならないので、変えてください。
    – Earthliŋ
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 19:22
  • "「今日は時間がない」から「また今度遊ぼうね」"は、普通は"「今日は時間がないからまた今度遊ぼうね」"と書いてしまうように思います。。。
    – user1016
    Commented May 5, 2013 at 1:08

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