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I was playing a game (Yu-Gi-Oh) until I found this:

これといった用があって来たわけじゃない.

This was in the very beginning of the game, when someone woke me up. I'm not sure what 「これといった」 and 「わけじゃない」 mean. May someone help me, explaining the sentence? Thank you very much!

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    This site does not do translations, so your question will probably get voted closed. However, if you try to translate it yourself and explain where you're having trouble, then it should be fine. Feb 21, 2015 at 20:42
  • いった is a past tense verb of to go.
    – usukidoll
    Feb 22, 2015 at 1:23
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    @usukidoll This いった is actually 言った in terms of meaning. But, これといった is an expression anyways and is probably best understood as a single unit. Feb 22, 2015 at 2:25

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This would have been a much better question had you shown your own translation attempt. The sentence indeed contains a couple of very useful words and phrases.

「これといった[用]{よう}があって[来]{き}たわけじゃない。」

「これといった」 = 「これと[言]{い}った」 ≠ 「これと[行]{い}った」

As a way to understand this phrase, try "rewriting" it in your head to 『これ!』と言った, which would roughly mean "saying 'This is it!'".

Since 「これといった」 is always used in conjunction with a negative expression containing 「ない」, the basic idea of a phrase/sentence containing 「これといった」 would automatically be something like "there is nothing one could point one's finger and say 'This is it!'

A wordy explanation, I know, but you will keep encountering this quotative 「と」 for as long as you study Japanese. Informally, it is 「って」 (and I am sure you keep hearing that).

Moving on to 「~~わけじゃない」, it means "It is not the case that ~~" , "I do not mean to ~~"

「これという用があって来たわけじゃない。」, therefore, means:

"It is not that I came here for any particular (or 'important') errand."

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  • Thank you very much! Unfortunately, I couldn't try to do any translation because everything was new for me. :/ I know what あって and 来た mean, but in this sentence, they didn't make sense. I tried to look on the internet what これといった and わけじゃない mean, but I couldn't understand anyway(これといった, according to Tangorin means "nothing special (with neg. verb)", but わけじゃない, that is in the negative, means "it does not mean that ...". This "conflict" of negatives confused me, hahaha. :P Again, thank you!
    – fhc
    Feb 22, 2015 at 21:07

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