夕食が済んで、我々は居間へ移った。

Sentence Discussions Japanese
#1
English Translation

When dinner was over, we adjourned to the sitting room.

In another sentence (彼らは食事を済ませた。), MsFixer explained that 済む cannot be used to mean “to finish (a meal),” but rather to “get away with (doing something.” However, in this sentence, 済む seems to be used to mean just as such. Is this sentence broken?

#2

@ericaw
The original Japanese sentence is correct and sounds natural. I’m afraid you are still confused with the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs.

  1. 彼らは食事を済ませた。
  2. 夕食が済んで、我々は居間に移った。
  • The doer of 済ませる in Sentence 1 is “they”, and the object of the action is “meal”. ==> 済ませる is a transitive verb.
  • The doer of 済む in Sentence 2 is “dinner”, not “we”. There is no object of the action. ==> 済む is an intransitive verb and it means “the dinner is over, and…”

I didn’t explain so on the related sentence discussion page. Please re-read it carefully.

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