We had lots of adventures on our trip.
At first sight, I would translate 危ない目にあう as “I met dangerous eyes” which feels poetic, but I think it gives the idea. Digging a bit, 目にあう means to experience or go through something (negative).
So on the whole “We had a lot of adventures” seems like an understatement. “We had a lot of troubles” maybe?
@mike-lima
Correct. The Japanese-English paid doesn’t match. 危ない目に遭う illustrates unpleasant seriously dangerous situations.
～目に遭う is a frequent idiom. You can find more example sentences on 英辞郎. We usually spell the idiom as 目に遭う in Kanji although 目にあう in Hiragana is also okay.
遭う（あう）in general means “to encounter (problematic/unfavorable situations etc.)”. 遭遇する（そうぐうする）is another expression.
We had lots of adventures on our trip.
I ran a further breakdown of this sentence; since obviously the English translation doesn’t match lol.
Meaning
This sentence translates to: “We encountered many dangerous situations during our trip.”
A more literal translation would be: “We met with many dangerous eyes during our travel.” However, this is misleading because “危ない目にあう” is an idiomatic expression that means “to encounter danger” or “to have a close call,” not literally about eyes.
Grammatical Breakdown
Let’s analyze this sentence piece by piece:
私たち (watashitachi) - “we”
This is the first-person plural pronoun
Functions as the subject of the sentence
は (wa) - topic marker particle
Marks 私たち as the topic of the sentence
Shows what the sentence is about
旅行 (ryokō) - “trip” or “travel”
This is a noun derived from Chinese characters 旅 (journey) and 行 (go)
中 (chū) - “during” or “in the middle of”
This is a noun suffix that means “middle/during”
When attached to another noun (旅行), it creates the meaning “during (the noun)”
旅行中 (ryokōchū) - “during the trip”
This functions as a temporal adverbial phrase
Note that there’s no particle after this phrase, which is grammatically valid in Japanese
たくさんの (takusan no) - “many” or “a lot of”
たくさん is an adverbial noun meaning “many/much”
の is a possessive/attributive particle that connects たくさん to the following noun
危ない (abunai) - “dangerous”
This is an i-adjective that modifies the following noun
目 (me) - literally “eye,” but in this phrase it means “situation” or “experience”
Part of the idiomatic expression 危ない目にあう
に (ni) - particle indicating direction or target
In this pattern, it connects 目 with the verb あう
あった (atta) - past tense of あう (au), “to meet with” or “to encounter”
In this context, combined with 危ない目に, it forms the idiomatic expression “to encounter danger”
The verb is in past tense (た-form)
The Idiomatic Expression: 危ない目にあう
This is a key point to understand. 危ない目にあう is an idiomatic expression that means “to encounter danger” or “to have a close call.” While 目 literally means “eye,” in this expression it refers to a situation or experience. The whole phrase 危ない目にあう functions as a set pattern meaning “to get into a dangerous situation.”
Sentence Structure
Subject + Topic Marker + Temporal Phrase + Modifier + Idiomatic Expression
In this case:
Subject with topic marker: 私たちは (We)
Temporal phrase: 旅行中 (during travel)
Modifier: たくさんの (many)
Idiomatic expression: 危ない目にあった (encountered dangerous situations)
Additional Notes
The sentence uses the past tense (あった), indicating that these dangerous situations occurred in the past.
There’s no explicit object in this sentence because the idiomatic expression 危ない目にあう functions as a complete predicate meaning “to encounter danger.”
The pattern X目にあう can be used with other adjectives too, such as:
ひどい目にあう (hidoi me ni au) - to have a terrible experience
いい目にあう (ii me ni au) - to have a good experience (less common)
The expression suggests that the dangers were unexpected or unplanned encounters during the trip, rather than intentional risk-taking.