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https://twitter.com/sally_amaki/status/1505553739096408066

In this tweet, the English sentence

I’m way too young to have this much past to cringe about.

got translated to

こんないっぱい黒歴史持ってるには若すぎる。

If こんないっぱい黒歴史 is 'this much cringe' and '持ってる' is 'have' and '若すぎる' is 'too young', what grammatically does the 'には' part do in this sentence?

SpikedHelmet
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  • Does it help when the sentence is written like this「こんないっぱい黒歴史持ってる**の**には若すぎる。」? – Jimmy Yang Mar 21 '22 at 02:21
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    Is this の is converting to 'こんないっぱい黒歴史持ってる' to a noun? Does that mean that には serves as the 'to' in the sentence? So if I want to say "I'm too [X] to [Y]" it's "[Y]のには[X]すぎます" and "I'm too X for Y" is "[Y]には[X]すぎます" @JimmyYang – SpikedHelmet Mar 21 '22 at 02:35
  • Yes, you got the general idea. – Jimmy Yang Mar 21 '22 at 02:41
  • Would removing the 'は' change the meaning of the sentence, or is it just there for emphasis? @JimmyYang – SpikedHelmet Mar 21 '22 at 02:43
  • The Japanese sentence doesn't sound very natural to me. (の would make it worse.) What exactly is it supposed to mean? Does the person not have "this much past to cringe about" because she is too young for that, or does she have it despite being young? – aguijonazo Mar 21 '22 at 18:39
  • The English sentence means "I already have a high number of cringey memories. For someone my age, this number is shockingly high." @aguijonazo – SpikedHelmet Mar 21 '22 at 23:00
  • This seems related: [When do you use するには as opposed to するため（には） to mean "in order to”?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/5069/43676) The sentence sounds unnatural because a ている-form is used where a purpose is expected. It seems an awkward translation. I would say something like 若いのにこんなに黒歴史がある. – aguijonazo Mar 21 '22 at 23:53

1 Answers1

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『こんないっぱい黒歴史持ってるには若すぎる。』

こんな ↔ Such(or this much, that much)

いっぱい　↔ a lot of(or fully, bunch of)

黒歴史　↔ shameful old memories (some of the past that you want to hide from others)

持ってる(=持っている)　↔　having(=have + ing)

~には　↔　to do ~ (or to be ~)

若すぎる　↔　too young

So I may interpret the sentence as the following.

He(or she) is too young to have such a lot of shameful old memories.

Remember that even though there is no 'he'(or she) which could have been the subject word in the original sentence, Japanese language is already implying it. The biggest characteristic of Japanese language is that they omit frequently with the subject(such as 私、僕、彼、あなた）word that depicts a person.

The meaning of 「には」can be totally changed depending on the context of the sentence. So my explanation can only go for the sentence you've posed on the question.

Eddie Kal
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user1851281
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