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I'm reading a manga where the character is shocked at how quickly he has leveled up. He says:

ただ。。。ありえないほど伸びてる。。。これじゃあ僕のこれまでの半月は一体何だったんだという話に。。。

I'm interested in this usage of ending a sentence with という話に but I'm uncertain on the meaning. Is this a common pattern? Should we assume the ellipsis/missing words implies something along the lines of という話になるだろう ?

And is it accurate to translate this roughly as:

It's just... I'm growing an insane amount... Now people will be talking about what the hell I've been up to this past half month.

Basically does the 話 here mean the character will be the subject of talk by other people?

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    I don't think it necessarily has to mean "people will talk about it". My understanding is something along the lines of "it's like...", "isn't it like...", "the situation will become..."
    – Eddie Kal
    Jan 20, 2022 at 7:15

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Yes it's short for ～という話になる(だろう), which is a colloquial set phrase that means "amounts to ～", "would effectively mean ～", "leads to the conclusion that ～", or something like these. In other words, it's almost the same as ～ということになる.

これじゃあ僕のこれまでの半月は一体何だったんだという話に(なる)。

It makes me wonder what the hell I've been up to this past half month.
It effectively means my efforts for the last half month have been meaningless.

～という話だ is used in the same way. Do not take this 話 too literally. See also: Meaning of どんだけお人好しなんですかって話ですよね / みすぎって in the phrase 韓国たのしみすぎって話

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  • Thanks for the explanation! So it seems like という話 can be used in a similar way to ということ or というわけ in explaining a meaning or conclusion? Also, do you think this would be an acceptable translation of the sentence: "So it begs the question... what the hell have I been up to the past half month?!"
    – skywalker
    Jan 20, 2022 at 21:06
  • @skywalker It's acceptable but maybe a bit too verbose. 話になる is a fairly common phrase that can happen casually in everyday speech.
    – naruto
    Jan 21, 2022 at 0:09

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