Hello,
I don’t quite understand what に means in the construction 訳にはいかない. I realize that it’s a set expression that should probably be memorized on its own but I’m still troubled because it doesn’t conform to any meaning of に I’m used to.
Is the idea that 訳 is the “target” of the sentence, and it can’t be reached? It’s not possible to do because you can’t rationalize it, so to speak?
Shall I bring a shrubbery? Or perchance just say it?
I guess that a literal translation could be ‘as for the reason / circumstances /case (訳), I cannot go to it’. So yes, 訳 would be the target / destination / conclusion to which one cannot go to / reach. Putting には together would result in ‘toward 訳’ (訳に) being the topic.
Would this sound any good!?
I don’t think this is the に that indicates a direction so to speak, but rather should be thought of as “には”, the particle that can replace は to indicate other options and create contrast.
Here’s an example, though here it is just written as に.
我々にできようか means “Can we really do this (sending a child to die for us)?” As opposed to just 我々は, 我々に implies that someone else may be able to do this, perhaps because they are less ethical, but in this case of us specifically, we cannot.
So to answer your question, 訳 refers to the aforementioned circumstance, and には serves to emphasize that circumstance and its inability to be accepted or permitted by the speaker. However, as you mentioned thinking of this as a set phrase should be your aim
Thank you for your help!
これを教えてくれてありがとう!
One construction that confuses me is ‘私には3人の息子がいます’. I thought that this would just be ‘私は3人の息子がいます’ but everytime I see this kind of pattern, it is always ‘私には…’.
I guess it could fall under the ‘in regard to’ use of the には pattern and is somehow related to the use of いる. Would it be 持つ, then ‘私は’ would be right. 正しいですか?
