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Does this make sense and what does it mean?

そのあとで、日本語がとくいだことになったと思います。

Does this translate to: After that I think I became good at Japanese?

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  • your translation seems fairly accurate to me, although とくい can have the specific meaning of "specialty", so possibly "especially good at" might be closer? Can you tell us more about what is going on here? is this something you heard someone say, or read in a book, or what? I'm just wondering why you doubt the Japanese makes sense?
    – ericfromabeno
    Commented Sep 15, 2018 at 10:36
  • I came up with it to see if my understanding of ことになる is correct or not, thanks so much for your feedback :)
    – J.Treutlein
    Commented Sep 15, 2018 at 11:17
  • hmm... actually I had wondered about that portion of the text. I'm not a native speaker, so I thought it seemed ok, but perhaps you should wait for someone to provide more insight. I know that "ことになった" is used to describe things which happened "outside of one's own control"...
    – ericfromabeno
    Commented Sep 15, 2018 at 11:30

2 Answers 2

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You could say:

日本語が得意になったと思います。

ことになる has a different meaning. According to "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar", page 202: "An event takes place as if spontaneously, irrespective of the speaker's volition."

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No. If it's 日本語が得意{とくい}なことになった, it means "I ended up being regarded to be good at Japanese (against truth)", though.

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  • ooh, so it implies a sort of "false perception" if used in this manner? So @J.Treutlein 's sentence would be translated as "After that, I think people falsely assumed I was fluent in Japanese." ?
    – ericfromabeno
    Commented Sep 16, 2018 at 0:37
  • @ericfromabeno I said no. Please check basic grammar. こと is a noun.
    – user4092
    Commented Sep 16, 2018 at 2:38
  • I'm sorry, I thought I was just rephrasing the English you used in your explanation... I was specifically wondering about your use of "(against truth)"
    – ericfromabeno
    Commented Sep 16, 2018 at 7:04
  • Ah, I see. I'm sorry too. Anyway, it's not necessarily that people misjudge but also arbtrarily change criteria for the purpose of a scheme or so.
    – user4092
    Commented Sep 16, 2018 at 10:52

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