たつもりで vs たことにして (pretending to)

Japanese
#1

I found the following sentence in the 日本語パワードリルN1 grammar book.

病気になった(insert answer)会社を休んで遊びに行った。

  1. つもりで
  2. かのごとき
  3. ことにして
  4. ことだから

The answer is 3, but I don’t understand what would be wrong with 1 in this case.

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#2

Maybe it has something to do with 1. insinuating that you actually intended to be sick? Just a guess though, that is a curious question.

I found some more info here thanks to @nekoyama’s answer:

The most interesting part for us here is the 説明 section, for example:
「AたつもりでB」は「本当（ほんとう）はAしていないが、Aしたと考えてBする」
「本当はAしていないが、Aしたという気持（きも）ちで〜する」と言いたい時に使われます。」
So, it really does seem awkward to say 1.
But I recommend reading the whole page.

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#3

つもり is about what oneself believes, and たつもりで basically expresses imagining something as a condition. It’d be like “Believing/Telling myself/Thinking I had gotten sick, I took time off from work and went out to have fun” which makes no sense. It’s not something one would tell oneself in this situation.

ことにする can be used when pretending something is true that’s not actually true, as in “Pretending I had gotten sick, I took time off from work and went out to have fun”.

5 Likes
#4

So ことにする is both used for “deciding to do” as well as “pretending to do”? Interesting. I didn’t know that.

#5

I didn’t either, but I can certainly see it that way.
“I decided I would be sick today, so I took the day off and went to have fun” or “I decided I was sick”–a phrase I’ve definitely used before when playing hooky from school and doing something fun with mom instead :joy:

#6

For pretending something happened or is in a certain state, the verb is in the past form (unless it’s noun + という).

For decisions, it’s in nonpast form.

4 Likes
#7

I see. Thanks for that!