Meaning of this sentence

Japanese
#1

So I came across this sentence, while pretty simple, I don’t really understand the use of とこ here. The sentence is:
武田先輩が机で寝てるとこ初めて見た

Can someone explain to me why とこ is added here? What exactly does とこ do to make this sentence different from just 武田先輩が机で寝てる初めて見た

I just thought of this now, but does it have to do with the topic? Is it kind of like saying:
Takeda senpai is sleeping at a desk, this “time” is the first time I’ve seen this. Reason I used time is because I’ve seen とこ used this way to say something like “this isn’t the time/place”, although I don’t really think it can be translated to “time” in this sentence. Anyways, if someone could help clarify that’d be great.

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#2

とこ(ろ) is a fairly flexible term, one of its uses is describing a situation (such as the one where Takeda is sleeping at his desk). For the first time I saw the situation where Takeda sleeps at his desk → in more natural English without translating とこ as a word: I’ve never seen Takeda sleep at his desk before.

A complete sentence like “Takeda is sleeping at his desk” can’t be an object for a verb without some help from something it can describe as a relative clause. So the difference is that the second sentence just doesn’t work as one sentence. (But it could be two sentences as in “Takeda is sleeping at his desk! I’ve never seen this before!”)

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#3

I agree with nekoyama 100% here. ところ has many different uses, but it is very often used for a ‘situation’. When you compare it to words like 状況（じょうきょう）、which is also often used for a situation, the nuance is much more ‘a situation that is not really important enough to be labelled -a situation-’.

If you want a good 1 to 1 translation, the positive meaning of ‘When he/she + verb(s)/is verb(ing)’ is a pretty good one. I find that this usage frequently has that meaning. Example -

武田先輩が机で寝てる初めて見た
‘This is the first time I have seen Takeda -when he’s been sleeping- at his desk’

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#4

@josh

It is like @Asher and @nekoyama say.
This is contraction of 武田先輩が机で寝て「い」るとこ「ろを」初めて見た。

You can learn more about different uses of ところ in my post here.

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#5

@nekoyama @Asher @mrnoone
In this case, could you use こと? How would the nuance change?
武田先輩が机で寝ている ところを 初めて見た。
武田先輩が机で寝ている ことを 初めて見た。
(I’m using everything spelled out to focus on the grammar difference)

I imagine it’s something like the first sentence is like you’re seeing it happen at work, and the second sentence is like an observation at a sleep study experiment. Maybe?

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#6

Hey! @FredKore

Using こと in this sentence sounds unnatural. In general ことを見る is not that often, and would something along “I have seen that” or “I see thing that”. So you can think of こと as “thing” (more precisely “fact”) or simply nominalizer.
So naturally, こと will be used more with things like 知っている and so on.

On the other hand, ところ means “situation”, “state” or “scene” (can be also translated as “time” or “moment”), so it focuses on this aspect more. Since we “see” scenes rather than facts usually.

I hope it helps, Cheers

PS
I would like to add something, since it is very similar to English actually.

For example, you can see someone sleeping. But cannot see sleeping. Using “gerund” (nominalized “to sleep” - “sleeping”) is unnatural in English too.
Same thing happens with “writing”, “running”. You can see the someone doing something, but cannot see the action itself.
So:
机で寝ている先輩を初めて見た。
Is natural.

On the other hand, you can see “state” or “scene” where someone is sleeping. Which is the case with ところ, but we cannot translate it 1 to 1 in English.

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#7

@nekoyama @Asher @mrnoone
Thanks everyone, this is super helpful. I really depend on 1 to 1 translations and when I cannot figure out how a word is affecting a sentence it drives me crazy. So I appreciate all the information since I’ve been seeing とこ come up a lot more. Also, thanks @Asher for the general 1 to 1 translation for this.

It’d be nice if every native Japanese source just hyperlinked every grammar particle to Bunpro :slightly_smiling_face: That’d make things a lot easier.

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#8

Ah.:bulb: I like that “scene” translation. (although I’m sure it can’t be translated like that all the time)

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#9

@FredKore
Exactly!
You got it!

I am so happy :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

@josh np :slight_smile:

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