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I've been trying to understand what is being said below. In particular, the usage of 「なるなって」.

My translation currently stands as:

そうだよ。言葉に責任持たなきゃね

"That's right. You must hold responsibility for your words, right?"

約束を守れないような人間にはなるなって教えてくれたのはミトさんだよ

"Mito-san is teaching me to become so that humans are not to be trusted (lit. not-able-to-hold-a-promise-seeming)"

I can't understand how 「なるなって」 is used in the sentence above. At face value I'm taking it to mean 'becoming to become'. For example, 医者になるなって would mean "I'm only just finally reaching this long-awaited goal of being a doctor" (lit. I'm becoming to become a doctor).

Can anyone shed some light on how 「なるなって」 is used?

1 Answer 1

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This is the negative imperative な, plus the quotative って. So we have:

約束を守れないような人間にはなるなって教えてくれたのはミトさんだよ!
The one who taught me "Don't become someone who can't keep their promises" — that's Mito!

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  • Very helpful, thanks.
    – egglog
    Commented Nov 12, 2022 at 18:13
  • Incidentally your understanding ("becoming to become") isn't right — let me know if that's not clear to you from the answer I've given.
    – jogloran
    Commented Nov 12, 2022 at 22:13
  • "— that's Mito" sticks closely to the emphasis the JP has but doesn't seem quite like natural English to me. Furthermore this isn't marked as a verbatim quote. Without knowing the situation it's hard to know exactly how to phrase the beginning, but perhaps: "Mito said not to be the guy who can't keep their promises!" Or "Mito always said" "Mito told me" depending on how exactly Mito conveyed this advice, whether Mito's now violating his own advice, etc. Commented Nov 13, 2022 at 13:40

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