手を触れるな。

Sentence Discussions Japanese
#1
English Translation

Don’t touch.

Is the translation right? I thought this meant “Don’t touch (my) hand”.

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#2

@mike-lima
The original sentence pair is correct. I guess you were confused with the difference between 触れる (ふれる) and 触る (さわる).

  • Don’t touch (my) hand. = (私の)手に触れるな (ふれるな) or (私の)手を/に触るな (さわるな)
  • Don’t touch (something X). = (お前の)手をXに触れるな (ふれるな) or (お前の)手でXに触るな (さわるな)

触れる (ふれる) means “to touch lightly”. 触れる is particularly used when you touch something sensitive, secretive or fragile.

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#3

Thank you @MsFixer
That is helpful, but what threw me off was the use of the を particle. Since touch is transitive in English (and Italian) and を normally denotes the direct object, I translated as touch the hand.

However, now I am still unsure about the を. If the verb is intransitive, that means it wouldn’t accept a direct object. Shouldn’t it be「 手が触れるな」?
Or does を have a different meaning here?

#4

@mike-lima
手が触れるな is grammatically broken and sounds unnatural because you cannot use the intransitive verb in an imperative sentence like this. 手が触れる has a connotation of “unintentional” touch, and it’s not actually a verb but closer to an adjective.

The correct expression 手を触れるな is closer to “Don’t PUT your hands on something” in English. 触れる and “put” are transitive verbs. The action is intentional, and the speaker asks the listener not to do so.

I guess you are still confused with the difference between 触れる and 触る. 英辞郎 has many example sentences with 〜を触れる. I can assure you that those examples are all correct. Please check them out.

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