te tanoshikatta

[jampanman]

Hi all,

I recently had to give a speech in Japanese to one of the schools I have been working at. I wanted to express how much I have enjoyed working at the school. I called on a friend to give me some help with the speech and he gave me the following grammar form: ~te tanoshikatta.

I am a aware of the grammar form [A]te[B] where A is the the cause of B but this doesn't seem exactly the same situation as the above.

I was wondering if anyone could tell me what role the te-form verb is playing in the te tanoshikatta, some other examples which use the same pattern would be great. Also how is this different to the form [jisho verb] no ha tanoshikatta.

Thanks ahead.

James

[QuackingShoe]

There is no 'te' that implies causality, not sure where you got that from. kiite kudasai, motte iku, etc, there's no A causes B here. 'te' reallys just lets you keep going. It just links things. How they're linked is up to your interpretation and general conventions, or any other grammatical elements that mix things up. kiite kudasai = listen to me (listen and give me), motte iku = take away (hold and go), itte kimasu = I'll be back (go and come),　itte miru = try to go (go and look/try), itte tabeta = went and ate (went and ate) tabete ii = it's alright if you eat (eat and good), hanashite tanoshikatta = it was nice talking with you (talked and was fun).

Some of these verbs placed last are considered 'auxiliary' and are considered to have special function (kudasaru, iku, miru), but it's a largely arbitrary distinction in my opinion. It's all done the same way, and generally makes the most sense in the long run if you think about it literally.
Also:
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/compound.html
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/enduring.html

[skorange]

I agree, I don't think I've heard such a strict interpretation where A て B in which A causes B. It could be implied, though, like A て B in which A happens (to completion) before B. eg: しごとから帰って寝た。 - I got home from work and slept.

But for what you're saying, here's my gut feeling for the usage:

学校に入って楽しかった。 I joined the school and it was fun
学校に入るのは楽しかった。Joining schools was (once) fun. Use of "は" here might have an added nuance that other things may not have been fun. Eg joining school was fun (but I hated doing homework).

[QuackingShoe]

The relation can be cause and effect, yeah, as you say, it's just that it's always an inference instead of an actual grammatical construction. It's very much like saying in English "I tripped and broke my leg." The one happens because of the other, in this instance, but 'and' implies nothing of the sort on it's own - it just connects them.

[Bucko]

There is no 'te' that implies causality, not sure where you got that from.

Wrong. The 'te' form can imply causality. Consider the following:

来ていただいてうれしい I'm glad you came. What caused the person to be glad? The person coming.
田中さんがいなくて寂しい I miss Tanaka. What caused you to feel loney? Tanaka san not being there.
あなたと会えて楽しかった It was fun meeting you. What caused you to have fun? Being able to meet you.

[QuackingShoe]

Please read my post above.

[Bucko]

Please read my post above.

I did read your second post and I think you're making the mistake of trying to justify Japanese grammar into awkward English equivelants. The fact is that 'te' can mean both 'and' and 'so', depending on the context. End of story.

[Javizy]

You said it implies causality originally, which can be true, but semantically it doesn't express a cause-effect relationship. There's no grammatical dependency between the clauses; the listener has to infer the meaning with common sense. You're also using English equivalents to get your idea across. Think of the grammatical differences between Japanese sentences:

飲みすぎて頭が痛い。
飲みすぎたから/せいで/ので頭が痛い。

None of this changes the outcome in terms of the original question. It's just one of those petty disputes about semantics you often see on the internet

[jampanman]

Thank you all for your input on the subject. The explanation have really helped me get my head round it.

While it may not be strictly true that the form implies a direct cause from a learning point of view I think I will be best for me to consider it as such.