Potential form 聞く

Japanese
#1

I don’t understand how the answer is formed here:

もう一度言いってください。周りがうるさくてきこえません。[聞]

Please say it once more. It is so noisy that I am unable to hear you.

The answer suggests that we should use the polite potential form. Won’t that be きけません?

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#2

As you thought, 聞ける is the potential form of 聞く. 聞こえる is a separate verb, meaning something closer to “to be audible”. So even though 聞こえる is the most logical verb for this sentence, it doesn’t really make sense to use it for an example sentence for this grammar point.

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#3

I have just got into this review and it confused the hell out of me, too.

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#4

@mrnoone Can you replace this example sentence?

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#5

To me, this seems like a prime example of what Ghost Reviews were made for.

If it doesn’t already, I’d say it’d be best for the system to alert the user (with a warning) that there are special verbs for the “potential” of 聞く・見る, in the event that someone attempts 聞けません in this example.

聞こえる・見える are “to be audible” and “to be visible,” whereas 聞ける・見られる I believe refer to a person’s ability to see or hear, as in, “the eyes/ears of my body are capable/not capable,” for example. As such, I’m not sure that I’ve even encountered 聞ける・見られる anywhere yet… but, 聞こえる・見える are extremely common.

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#6

@Kai @seanblue @madmalkav

I have decided to change this example sentence since the focus of the lesson is the potential form, and it confuses users.

However, I will still add 聞こえる and 見える to some sentences with an explanation in nuance section.

I hope it will solve the issue :+1:

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#7

Do you mean in general or for this grammar point? If the latter, maybe it would be better to include them as their own grammar point?

#8

I thought about explanation under sentence with it.

#9

I always thought of 聞こえる and 見える as “potential form exceptions” even though they technically aren’t. I think an explanation would be fine but adding them as separate grammar points sounds just a bit redundant to me personally.

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#10

Ditto, because although in English you ask someone, “Can you hear me?” or “Can you see this?” those exact same questions are conveyed in Japanese by instead using（◯が）聞こえる？・見える？

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#11

I think of these as conjugation lessons, because what else is there to review for a “potential form” grammar point? The meaning itself is obvious. In that at least, testing 見える and 聞こえる is counterproductive.

And I don’t consider these exceptions at all. For example:
A: 明日、映画を見ようと思って… 一緒に見ませんか。
B: ごめんね。ちょっと忙しいから、見られない。

Now, I have no idea if 見る is the best verb for this scenario (as opposed to say 行く), but I think it’s a valid usage of 見られる. You couldn’t use 見える here.

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#12

Yeah you are right. I don’t know what I would do personally about the issue. This is where translating between Japanese and English becomes tricky cause the two language operate on such different levels.

All I know is that since 聞こえる and 見える are very often translated as “can hear/see” I don’t mind that they pop up in “potential form grammar” as fake exceptions. You will learn the nuance later on, such as the one in your example.

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#13

Just came across something I felt worth pointing out—

Was watching Kizuna AI play the new Resident Evil game (the link is timestamped), and noticed she says, with a caption to go with it:「お前、目が見えないと違うんか？」

For some reason I’m unaware of, she thought the monster was blind, and thought she’d be able to sneak by unnoticed when it attacked her. To my surprise, she still used 見えない instead of 見られない. It’s apparently a set phrase, according to 英辞郎 on the WEB:

  • 目が見えないこと
    lack of sight

  • 目が見えない状態で生まれる
    be born blind

  • ほとんど目が見えない
    be nearly blind

Etc., etc. (there are 10 other entries in the above link using this phrasing)

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