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In short, what I mean is, how can I mention about one certain thing (not one thing in amount) in Japanese?
For example "one morning" in the following sentence:
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
I come across some usages like "あるX". For instance:
Is this ある may be what am I looking for?
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
One morning -> ある朝
Is this ある may be what am I looking for?
I can confirm it is the one, as a native speaker.
The kanji version is 或る, but more often it appears in ひらがな: ある人が…, ある時, あるところにおじいさんとおばあさんが, etc.
We also sometimes say とある: とある日曜の午後 (with rather a feel of popular literature).
某｛ぼう｝ is yet another possibility, in the same manner: ex. 某日｛ぼうじつ｝, 某会社社長{ぼうかいしゃしゃちょう}, 某ファーストフード店｛てん｝, etc.
ある uses yet another kanji, 有る. But to be fair, those kanjis are really not used. In fact, when I was taking Japanese lessons, my teacher used to correct my 有るs into あるs. Besides, I once wrote an email and asked a workmate to check it, and he replaced 或る by ある.
Jul 11, 2017 at 8:41
ある in a sentence.
I'd say "yes" to your final question.
You can definitely say something like ある朝 or ある朝のこと as a general way of saying "one morning".
The other answers give good insight into Japanese, but in the particular example of Kafka's Metamorphosis I can also confirm that ある朝 is the preferred translation of "one morning":
ある朝、グレゴール・ザムザが気がかりな夢から目ざめたとき、自分がベッドの上で一匹の巨大な毒虫に変ってしまっているのに気づいた。
One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.
