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So I was talking to this girl and she typed a really weird sentence(at least it felt weird for me lol):

[アニメみてたらねれなく]

So first what 見ていたら means? Something like "if I was watching" or "when I was watching"?

Then [ねれ] is [練れ] right? I looked it up for the なく suffix and it seem to be the negative form, but used in honorific words only, is it right?

Now the translation for that sentence would be "I didn't sleep because I was watching anime"? Or what?

One last thing, is this a really badly casual sentence or what? It feels sooo weird.

Thank you!!!

1 Answer 1

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たら is a "past conditional" marker, which can be used like this (from here):

The past conditional is the only type of conditional where the result can be in the past. It may seem strange to have an "if" when the result has already taken place. Indeed, in this usage, there really is no "if", it's just a way of expressing surprise at the result of the condition. This has little to do with conditionals but it is explained here because the grammatical structure is the same.

  • 家に帰ったら、誰もいなかった。
    When I went home, there was no one there. (unexpected result)
  • アメリカに行ったら、たくさん太りました。
    As a result of going to America, I got really fat. (unexpected result)

Here ねれ is the ら抜き version of the potential form of 寝る.

寝る ("to sleep")
→ 寝られる ("to be able to sleep")
→ 寝れる (nonstandard ra-nuki)
→ 寝れない (negation, "can't sleep")
→ 寝れなく (continuative form)

She did not finish the sentence "properly". This is in the same vein as this.

So the sentence says "I can't sleep because I was watching anime".

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  • Hi @naruto, thank you for the answer! I still got some questions though, First: what would be the difference between 見てたら and 見たら? and when really wanting to say if should i use the "ば" form? Oct 11, 2016 at 0:34
  • Second: so ra-nuki is justing simply dropping ra sound, interesting. This continuative form means something like "I can't sleep now in the present and it goes on into the future"(literally speaking)? So can I asume that 寝れなく is the negative form of 寝れている? Do you have any links about this conjugation? i'm curious about what would be the past tense of 寝れなく, 寝れなかった maybe? Oct 11, 2016 at 0:42
  • oh something snap here, when you say the 寝れなく is the continuative form and that it was not endend properly did you mean that she should have said 寝れなくて? Oct 11, 2016 at 1:37
  • 1. 見てたら is short for 見ていたら, which is past progressive ("was watching" rather than "watch"). 2. ば is normal conditional ("if"), たら can be used like "due to" or "because". See this. 3. Continuative form is one of conjugation types of adjectives/verbs. Yes, basically you can think of it as "te-form minus て".
    – naruto
    Oct 11, 2016 at 1:41
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    @FelipeOliveira It's not sure if 寝れなく should have meant 寝れなくて with this context only. It might have been 寝れなくなった or something instead.
    – user4092
    Oct 11, 2016 at 3:43

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