diff. between みられる；みえる；きける；きこ

[dudnaito]

みられる

[Javizy]

みえる and きこえる need to be used about something that is immediately perceptible, i.e. something you can see or hear right now. みられる and きける are used in all other cases as the potential forms of these verbs.

そらが曇ってきて太陽がみえなくなった。
The sky has gotten cloudy and I can't see the sun.
DVDプレヤーが故障してるから、貸してくれたDVDがみられなかった。
My DVD player is busted, so I couldn't watch that DVD you lent me.

イヤホンをしてるから、おまえの言ってることがぜんぜんきこえないよ！
I'm wearing earphones, so I can't hear what you're saying at all.
iPodを持ってないんで、電車でMP3がきけない。
I don't have an iPod, so I can't listen to MP3s on the train.

[skyskape4117182]

That was a really good explination of something that's been giving me a hard time for awhile. Just one part is confusing... what form of みえる is this:

そらが曇ってきて太陽がみえなくなった。
The sky has gotten cloudy and I can't see the sun.

みえる--> みえない-->みえなかった is simple/plain/casual past tense, right?

So what form is みえなくなった?

Oh wait- Is it みえる--> みえない-->みえなくて + なる in past tense?

Geez, that's complex. Japanese is like doing a logic puzzle.

[Javizy]

みえない becomes みえなく acting as an adverb modifying なる. Remember that ～ない is an adjective, so you can treat it like any い-adjective. Compare「みえなくなる」"become unable to see" and「ねむくなる」"become sleepy".

～なくなる is the negative equivalent of ～ようになる, and is used more commonly than ～ないようになる.

日本語が話せるようになる。
にほんごがはなせるようになる。
Become able to speak Japanese.
日本語が話せないようになる。
にほんごがはなせるようになる。
Become unable to speak Japanese.
日本語が話せなくなる。
にほんごがはなせるようになる。
Become unable to speak Japanese.

Since the main purpose of these constructions is to indicate change, you'll often see them used in conjunction with the ～てくる construction to indicate that the change happened over a period of time, or very suddenly.

今年じゅうぶんに話せるようになってきた。
I've become able to speak well over the course of this year.
え？わけがわからなくなってきた。
Huh? I've lost you (all of a sudden).

Compare with the verb indicating change in my original example「そらが曇ってきた」"The sky suddenly became cloudy."

[dudnaito]

thanks a lot for everything javizy. I'm actually attending a language school in Japan with 6 hours of classes/day and there's just so much stuff to learn that one or two grammatical concepts elude me. It's nice for an English speaker to explain it every once in a while.

i might have to rely on you for a while... lol.

[john10074]

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