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I don't really know where to ask for help; usually I get the meaning of a sentence on my own, but well, this sentence is giving me a hard time. It seems easy but I can't figure out the uses of はじめて= Hajimete and どれだっけ= doredakke

This is the sentence:

はじめて
食った具だ
どれだっけ

Hajimete kutta gu da doredakke

I know that Hajimete can be adverb and means "first time", and I know it is a intransitive verb as well.

However my translation is:

"What was the first time I ate such ingredients again?"

But I don't know if this translation is right because as I said I don't really get the use of hajimete and doredakke in this case.
Could anyone help with a proper translation and explanation please?

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    Can you add some more context? Where did you find this "sentence"? The way the lines are broken, it looks like a verse. In either case "はじめて食った具だ" and "どれだっけ" are likely to be separate sentences.
    – dainichi
    Commented May 14, 2013 at 2:09
  • 4
    I would just like to point out that this ke is a remnant of classical 助動詞 -ker-i, expressing hearsay-recollectional past. ke < ker-i < ki + ar-i.
    – Dono
    Commented May 14, 2013 at 9:36

1 Answer 1

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はじめて
食った具だ
I know that Hajimete can be an adverb and means "first time", and I know it is an intransitive verb as well.

Yes, the はじめて is used as an adverb here, meaning "for the first time."

「(これは)はじめて食った具だ」

-- It literally means "This is a filling/topping/ingredient I've eaten for the first time." The はじめて modifies the verb 食った, and the relative clause はじめて食った modifies the noun 具. I think you can also translate it as "I've never had this filling/topping/ingredient before".

どれだっけ

Literally, "Which one was that?" "I wonder which one it was." (≒「どれだったかな?」)
だっけ in デジタル大辞泉


These two sentences don't seem to be connected... If I were to think of a situation where they can be used together:
The speaker is eating some dish, and tastes something new, something that s/he has never tasted before, and goes like, (looking for the ingredient in his/her dish) "Oh? I've never tasted anything like this before... probably the ingredient was something I've never had... Hmm, do I still have some more in my dish? Maybe it was this red one, or maybe this green one... Which one was that??"
...maybe, maybe not! ^▽^

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  • ↑コンテクストがないので、実はめっちゃ間違ってるかも・・・
    – user1016
    Commented May 14, 2013 at 8:50
  • 1
    具 could also be "filling" for a sandwich/doughnut/...
    – Earthliŋ
    Commented May 14, 2013 at 11:42
  • @user1205935 そうですね!ピザとか丼とかの上に乗ってるトッピングのことも「具」って言ったりするんですが、toppingでいいでしょうか?
    – user1016
    Commented May 14, 2013 at 12:43
  • "topping"もいいですね
    – Earthliŋ
    Commented May 14, 2013 at 13:04
  • Thank you everyone for the replies I was actually having difficulty with this sentence because I thought it was just one sentence and not two separate ones Thanks again (:
    – Dai
    Commented May 14, 2013 at 23:34

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