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もっと ちゃんとした 攻撃用のスキルが欲しいんだけど…

What does the word もっと refer to in this sentence? Is it ちゃんとした ("I would have preferred a more typical attack skill")? Or is it 欲しい ("A typical attack skill is something I would have liked more")?

The official translation is

I would've preferred an actual attack skill, but...

but I'm not sure it reflects the nuance correctly.

max
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1 Answers1

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ちゃんとした means "decent" or "usable", not "typical". It can be safely modified by もっと. The sentence basically means "I want more decent attack skills". This is an ambiguous sentence (both in Japanese and English) which can mean either "(I've got at least a few useful skills but) I want more skills which are decent" or "(I've got some useless skill but) I want a skill which is more decent". If the official translation is correct, it means the latter in this context, i.e., もっと modifies ちゃんとした.

naruto
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  • Is there an easy way to disambiguate between the two meanings in Japanese? – max Dec 20 '21 at 02:21
  • @max In this case, もっと simply modifies the word right after it, so you only needed to know もっとちゃんとした is a valid combination. If the other meaning had been intended, ちゃんとした攻撃用のスキルがもっと欲しい would have been much more likely. But in general, no, there is no easy way. See [my previous answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/46822/5010). – naruto Dec 20 '21 at 02:50
  • Thank you! Just to double check, in もっとちゃんとした, もっと can modify either "ちゃんと" or the entire "ちゃんとした"? – max Dec 20 '21 at 07:50
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    @max Well, although jisho.org categorizes ちゃんとした as a distinct 連体詞, it's actually a plain adverb followed by した. See [this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/74972/5010). For example, you can say もっとちゃんと見ろ ("Look closer!"). So you can think もっと modifies ちゃんと only. – naruto Dec 20 '21 at 09:24