8

I encountered the following sentence in a comic book which I could not make sense of.

The comic strip depicts a character using a simple bird trap and saying: 「長年やってるけどかかったためしないなあ」 The first part, 長年やってるけど, can be roughly translated as "I've been doing this for quite a while", and this is quite clear.

The second part, かかったためしない, is not clear.

My guess is that it means something like "Catching is not the reason I'm doing this." The dictionary shows that かかる can be translated as "to catch (prey)" and I know that ため can be an "intention" and する is "do". However, I feel I may be wrong here, especially since it's all written in hiragana.

Some help would be appreciated.

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
9

You are parsing the sentence incorrectly. It should be

長年やってるけど かかった ためし (は) ない なぁ

It then roughly means,

I have been doing this for quite some years, but it's not like I have ever caught anything.

ためし (written 試し) can mean "trial/test", but here it is used in the sense of "experience" (written 例 or 様; see Tsuyoshi Ito's comment below and the entry in Daijisen), as is often the case in the phrase ためし(は)ない, e.g.

部屋を綺麗に片付けたためしはないでしょ
You look like you have never had the experience of (or a taste of) what it is like to have cleaned a room.

The person from your sentence has been trying to catch birds for many years, but has never had the experience of having caught something.

Improve this answer
5
  • Thank you. It is strange that no dictionaries I've checked show "experience" as one of the meanings of 試し, but it seems correct. Also, an online expression dictionary (home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/…) translates 試し（が）ない exactly as "I have never seen".
    – undercat
    Oct 7, 2012 at 10:48
  • (... which bears the same meaning as "I have never experienced")
    – undercat
    Oct 7, 2012 at 10:57
  • 2
    I do not think that 試し is the correct kanji for ためし with this meaning. Daijisen and Daijirin both list 例 and 様 as the kanji notations of it, although I would rather write it in hiragana.
    – Tsuyoshi Ito
    Oct 7, 2012 at 12:31
  • 2
    Oops, I should have been more careful in writing the previous comment. ためし which means “trial, test” is written as 試し. ためし which means “experience” is written as 例 and 様, and often in hiragana.
    – Tsuyoshi Ito
    Oct 7, 2012 at 12:55
  • @Tsuyoshi Ito Thanks for the correction. It makes sense now and conforms to what the dictionaries say.
    – undercat
    Oct 7, 2012 at 14:13

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .