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The English sentence "I went east to Japan." is quite simple - a direction and a destination together in a sentence. But it seems this is rather tricky to translate into Japanese.

I asked this Hinative question about how best to translate the sentence, and the answers are a bit contradictory. My question is, in a nutshell: I want to know if 「私は東へ、日本に行った。」 is grammatically correct or not.

In the main answerer's second comment, they say that 「私は東へ、日本に行った。」 would be grammatically correct, because it's considered to be a contraction of two sentences: 「私は東へ向かった。日本に行った。」.

However, that strikes me as odd. Isn't that essentially how the directional へ particle works all the time? If 「私は東へ、日本に行った。」 is grammatically valid, then why wouldn't it be valid to say that you can include both "direction+へ" and "destination+に" in sentences all the time?

Hoping to get a second opinion from the grammar experts in this group. Thanks in advance!

Hikonyan
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  • The English sentence works only because the word "east" functions as an adverb. Doesn't "I went to the east to Japan" sound weird? – aguijonazo Feb 13 '23 at 16:58
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    Personally (native speaker of English) I think your base sentence in English sounds at least a bit unnatural, particular without a very strong context in which it would make sense. To me (non-native) it sounds more natural to put 東に向かって in the sentence; I'm not convinced that the direct translation is any more unnatural than the English. – Brian Chandler Feb 13 '23 at 17:31
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    I think that thinking of へ as meaning "direction" is actually your fundamental problem. With 行く, for example, it doesn't really mean "direction" as much as more "general destination". For example, 東へ行った actually says "(I) went to _somewhere which was east_ (of my starting point)" or "(I) went in a direction which would cause me to end up in the east". So using both together isn't combining a direction and a destination. It's actually still combining two different destinations in the same sentence. – Foogod Feb 13 '23 at 17:44

2 Answers2

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私は東へ日本に行った sounds very weird to my native ears. place/direction + へ and place/direction + に occupy the same argument ("slot") of 行く, so they are mutually exclusive. (Of course, something like 5時に or 桜を見に can be used together with another へ/に for destination.)

To fix this, you need to paraphrase the sentence like so:

  • 日本に行くため東に向かった
  • 日本を目指して東へ出発した
  • ここから東にある日本へ行った
naruto
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As you said, it's a contraction of two sentences, so I don't see why it wouldn't be valid because they are for different verbs.

Also I'm not a native, but I feel "東へ向かって、日本に行った。" would be more natural than "東へ、日本に行った。"

Kimbi
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  • There is only one verb (行った) in the sentence, so what do you mean by "for different verbs"? – naruto Feb 13 '23 at 13:01
  • Even 東へ向かって、日本に行った sounds a little weird. Maybe 東へ東へと進み日本にたどり着いた or someting like that would make it work. How about 東へ出発し、日本に向かった – Uso Dayo Feb 13 '23 at 13:38
  • naruto: I believe 「東へ」on it's is not a complete sentence. A verb or noun has been omitted. The omitted verb suggested by the OP is 「向かう」 – Kimbi Feb 14 '23 at 02:22
  • Uso Dayo: How about 「日本に向かって、東に行った」? I believe this could also be a correct interpretation of the English. – Kimbi Feb 14 '23 at 02:27