みえた

[yankumi]

One of the books I use in my Japanese studies is a first grade primer for Japanese students. There is a simple story about a little pig that uses the word みえた numerous times. As in　 はじめの　ｋぶたが　うたいます　みえた　みえた。　I can pretty much translate that piglet is singing, is 　みえた　perhaps onamatapeia for lala?

[Harisenbon]

It's hard to tell from the short snippet you gave, but the only usage of みえた that I know of is to have seen　（unless you want to start talking about medical examinations, but I doubt that's in a 1st grader's book).

So he's saying "I saw you! I saw you!" or whatnot, depending on who/what he's talking about. Does that fit with the story?

[Kates]

Yeah, みえた　is the past tense of みえる (able to see). It sounds like the pig was just singing 'I saw you! I saw you!'

[yankumi]

thank you, that does fit as he is looking around at objects of different colors. My apologies for doing a poor job of translating, I had looked the word up on Jim Breen's WWWJDIC which gave the definition of "to be seen; to be in sight; to look; to seem; to appear" but didn't bother to try and conjugate it. Thanks again for the help.

[Kates]

'Mieta' is kind of special, I've noticed, though, so don't feel bad about missing it. (: Where we would say "I see you/it!" or "I found you/it!" in English, the Japanese say "mieta!" (I was able to see it) instead of "mita!" (I saw it) or even "miru!" (I see it)--and I think it's an interesting difference.

Same with "atta!" It is the past tense of 'aru' and is often used when someone finds a thing they were looking for--like car keys, for example. When found, a Japanese might say: "Aaa, atta!" when an English-speaker's equivalent is: "Oh, here they are!"

Just some neat cultural differences~ or maybe only I think so... >_>