彼女を一目見るやいなや、彼は恋してしまった。

English Translation

As soon as he took a look at her, he fell in love.

Is 一目 pronounced いちもく or ひとめ?The annotation says いちもく, but for some reason I also recall hearing ひとめ before.

ひとめ is the only correct pronunciation in this context, meaning “at a glance”.

いちもく is used in

一目置く(いちもくおく)= admit that the opponent is more skillful than yourself = respect someone. 一目(いちもく)is derived from the game of go (Chinese version of chess game) using black and white stones. A skilled player often gives away a few stones to the opponent before starting a game in order to make it more exciting. So, 一目置く means “to put a stone on the Go table”. The initial meaning was evolved to have another meaning.

一目瞭然だ(いちもくりょうぜん)= the fact can be judged by a glance = that’s so obvious that…

I don’t know why but 一目見て分かる(ひとめみてわかる)= 一目瞭然だ. These are exactly the same, but 一目 is pronounced differently. I guess 瞭然 is 音読み so as 一目 in a set phrase.


By the way, the original Japanese sentence is super wordy. It should be:

彼は彼女に一目惚れした。(かれはかのじょにひとめぼれした。)

一目惚れ is a frequent idiom.

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