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I'm playing イナズマイレブンGO, and ran into this sentence.

それでよく あの大口が叩けたな。

(Some context: The person speaking just realized that the person that challenged him is new to soccer.)

It appears that he's using a figure of speech: 大口を叩く which roughly means to boast. I'm guessing that part of the sentence is basically saying that the other player was all talk.

So my questions (and my guesses):

  1. それでよく is separated by a space. In this case, is this effectively a separate sentence/clause?
  2. 大口が叩けた uses the が particle instead of the を. Why is that? My interpretation is that 大口を叩く means something like "to strike at the mouth" while 大口が叩けた means something like "the mouth was able to strike", so it appears that I'm failing to follow the literal side of the idiom.

Thank you in advance for any help.

Jacques Martin
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    I guess 1 is simply the line break in a bubble; for 2, it is a dup of Can を be use instead of が? – sundowner Mar 11 '24 at 23:15
  • Ah I see... so putting it all together, 大口を叩く becomes が because of the past potential form 叩けた. From the answer here, the が + potential here is used to emphasize that the player "can boast (as opposed to acting upon the boast)" – Jacques Martin Mar 12 '24 at 01:42
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    It's parsed それで+よくあの大口が叩けた, rather than それでよく+あの大口が叩けた... I mean, it's not それでいい and あの大口が叩けた. This よく is: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/39684/9831 / https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/5651/9831 / https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/62232/9831 And this それで is: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/92720/9831 See the first example それで勉強しているつもりですか。 – chocolate Mar 12 '24 at 02:18
  • If the verb is in potential form, が and を both work generally. On the other hand, the plain transitive verb usually takes just を (大口を叩けるな is ok; 大口が叩く is unidiomatic). – sundowner Mar 12 '24 at 03:02

1 Answers1

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それでよく is separated by a space. In this case, is this effectively a separate sentence/clause?

No period or comma is necessary there, so I think it's just for readability. In situations where the use of kanji is limited due to screen resolution or the target age group, words may be separated by spaces for readability. See also: Spaces in children's books

大口が叩けた uses the が particle instead of the を. Why is that?

を and が are basically interchangeable in a potential sentence. For details, see: The difference between が and を with the potential form of a verb

As for 叩く, this is a verb that is used in the form "～口を叩く" and essentially means "to say (adjective) words". See the 6th definition here. For example, 無駄口を叩く means "to talk nonsense", and 陰口を叩く means "to backbite". These are idioms, so don't ask me what is physically being struck or beaten.

In case you've missed this, よく in your sentence means "how dare you...". See Chocolate's comment.

All in all, the sentence means "If so, it's surprising you could talk that big" or "Considering that, I'm amazed you managed to talk so boldly".

naruto
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