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This is more than likely due to my lack of reading enough Japanese; however, in this sentence the particles と and に are placed together which I haven't seen before.

Sentence:

一時は観光と買い物とに集中していた外国旅行ツアーも近頃はもっと細かくなって、音楽を聴く旅、城をまわる旅というようにある趣味の目的を持つ旅行計画もできてきた。

Is there an underlying reason for the と in this sentence? Would the sentence be the same with removing the second と?

Chris
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1 Answers1

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You may want to see a similar question I asked about using lists.

Bottom line, what you have there is a list of things, 観光と買い物と, "sightseeing and shopping".

When listing things, you can put と after the end of each word, or you can put と after each item except the last.

In the sentence you offer, the author has opted to put と after each listed item, and then に to indicate that the action of focusing, 集中している is being directed at all the items in that list collectively.

If I'm not mistaken, 観光と買い物に集中している would be equally grammatical, but someone should confirm that.

Community
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Questioner
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  • Thanks Dave, your similar question really helps. It might be grounds for deleting my own. – Chris Jul 25 '12 at 06:58
  • @Chris: Yeah, I thought about proposing a close by duplicate, but I thought it was worth keeping yours simply because you use と and に, whereas my question had と and が. Having your question up as well means people have more routes to finding an answer if they search using different terms. – Questioner Jul 25 '12 at 07:01
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    In addition to the "A to B" and "A to B to" patterns already mentioned, there is a third pattern: "A B to". For example, Man'yōshū 821: 青柳梅との花を折りかざし飲みての後は散りぬともよし. The start is equivalent to 青柳と梅の花（と）を... – Dono Jul 25 '12 at 14:20