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The sentence in question is:

相手の話の途中で話を始めるくせがあると、人に言われてはじめて気がついた。

I understand the meaning of this sentence as "I noticed my habit of interrupting people until someone told me", my question is, the と particle, what function is it playing here? is it a shortened という? It doesn't seem to be the usual "when X then Y" or "AND".

Haroth Silph
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  • I think in this case it'd be used with 言われる (as Eddie Kal said) instead of with 気がついた since it isn't the speaker the one who quoted it, I guess? – Haroth Silph Oct 17 '21 at 06:31
  • It goes with 気がついた. – aguijonazo Oct 17 '21 at 06:36
  • I'm having trouble seeing which one would be the right one, since it's quoting what was said and it was said by someone who isn't the speaker (人に言われてはじめて), that made me think it was a quotation that paired with 言われる. What would be the logic for it to go with 気がついた? – Haroth Silph Oct 17 '21 at 06:40
  • I have to defer to @aguijonazo on this. But I wonder if I could say that particle is shared by the two verbs connected in a テ形? – Eddie Kal Oct 17 '21 at 06:43
  • I wonder if it'd be possible to rephrase the sentence like in the example used to answer the question in the link @aguijonazo gave? That would make it a lot easier to understand – Haroth Silph Oct 17 '21 at 06:47
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    The core part of the sentence is `相手の話の途中で話を始めるくせがあると気がついた。` 人に言われて is inserted as an adverbial clause, along with the adverb はじめて. It is not impossible to think that this と goes with 言われて. In fact, that was what the speaker was told, of course. However, the sentence would most probably be written `相手の話の途中で話を始めるくせがあると人に言われて、はじめて気がついた。` in that case. And this sentence seems to lack information about what the speaker noticed as a result of having been told that by other people. It would sound more natural to say something like `相手の話の途中で話を始めるくせがあると人に言われて、はじめてそのことに気がついた。` – aguijonazo Oct 17 '21 at 07:03
  • @aguijonazo You mentioned 人に言われて was an adverbvial clause. I wonder if this is possible and natural: 人に言われて、相手の話の途中で話を始めるくせがあるとはじめて気がついた。 – Eddie Kal Oct 17 '21 at 07:30
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    @EddieKal - Yes. – aguijonazo Oct 17 '21 at 08:01

1 Answers1

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It's a quotative particle that goes with 気がついた. (Thanks to @aguijonazo for pointing out) 「相手の話の途中で話を始めるくせがある」 is being quoted as something which the speaker noticed after being told that.

Your translation is slightly off. It's more like:

I only noticed my bad habit of interrupting other people when they are talking when I was told that.

Things like "for the first time" are redundant and dispensed with in this rough rendering.

Eddie Kal
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