HolyCow:
Yeah, that's a little embarrassing. I wasn't really sure about that sentence before, so I added a little "TODO" comment to look at it again.
(By the way, if you don't do it already, you should view the wikitext source, because I occasionally sprinkle comments and clarifications or doubts I have; things that wouldn't fit into the sentence flow. Check my comments near the "Was she kidnapped by the criminal using brute force, I wonder?" sentence.)
Thanks for giving your own translation -- the big weakness I have in Japanese, is that once I have the meaning, I can
(usually) easily break down a sentence structurally, but before that happens, I'm often prone to
Necker Cube type illusions, like confusing active/passive/causative or mentally adding/subtracting a "koto" or "mono" -- so that helped my understanding a great deal.
That paragraph; me missing the part in red is what led to Morino only saying the crazy sentence, instead of talking about the FACT that it was a crazy sentence.
(hangs head)
夜、森野の家に電話をかけた。家の電話の番号は、以前に彼女から聞かされていた。家に電
話をするかもしれないという理由で番号を教わったのではない。彼女の家の番号がたまたまご
ろ合わせで頭の狂った文章になることを、以前、森野は話していた。それを僕は記憶していた
のだ。
That night, I called Morino's house. She had told me her home phone number previously. I hadn't been told it in case I wanted to call her home. She had told me previously that her home phone number, unexpectedly, using wordplay, worked out to a crazy sentence. And so I had remembered that.
I really should have looked up "
語呂合わせ - Wikipedia" before, but you know... hard work, etc. I'm surprised there even WAS an article on this.
語呂合わせ "goro-awase" literally means "joining word-sounds" ... basically games with words/numbers. For numbers in particular, you can make sentences, and usually the sentences are rude/shocking. Some examples they give are 427 = "死にな" = "shinina" = "shininasai" = "die (command)", and 37564 = "皆殺し" = "mina-goroshi" = "everyone killed; the murder of everyone"
So yeah, a mnemonic with a certain flavor to it... I can imagine Morino's goro-awase would be equally shocking.
(I don't know if this is really helpful to anyone, but perhaps if you're learning Japanese, or you're just curious how sentences get translated, and occasionally butchered.)
家に電話をするかもしれない
I will call the house, I think --> I may/might call the house.
家に電話をするかもしれないという理由で
For the reason that I may call the house.
家に電話をするかもしれないという理由で番号を教わった。
For the reason that I might call the house, the phone number was taught.
家に電話をするかもしれないという理由で番号を教わったのではない。
It is not the case that "For the reason that I might call the house, the phone number was taught."
(de-translate-esed)
I wasn't taught the number just in case I might call her house sometime.
女の家の番号
Her home telephone number
彼女の家の番号がたまたまごろ合わせで
Her home telephone number, unexpectedly, through word-play --
彼女の家の番号がたまたまごろ合わせで頭の狂った文章
Her home telephone number, unexpectedly, through word-play, a crazy sentence
彼女の家の番号がたまたまごろ合わせで頭の狂った文章になる
Her home telephone number, unexpectedly, through word-play, becomes a crazy sentence
彼女の家の番号がたまたまごろ合わせで頭の狂った文章になること
the fact that her home telephone number, unexpectedly, through word-play, becomes a crazy sentence
彼女の家の番号がたまたまごろ合わせで頭の狂った文章になることを、以前、森野は話していた。
Morino had mentioned before, the fact that her home telephone number, unexpectedly, through word-play, became a crazy sentence.
Also, the part about friends is "友達らしい友達" in my version, which works out literally to "friend-like friends" ... which in retrospect, is probably closer to "real friends" than "close friends" but I don't yet have the confidence to make judgments on something that subtle in Japanese. Any of the short ways of putting "friend" twice in the sentence "friend-like friends", "friendly friends", "friend-type friends", "FRIEND friends" all looked strange to me, so eventually I just decided to change the word, but
(hopefully) keep the meaning. Your "friends close enough to be called friends" kind of phrase is probably the shortest way to fit that kind of doubling into English.
After a little research, "友達らしい友達" does NOT seem to be a commonly used phrase at all, there being a few much more popular alternatives. So it's a set phrase, but not a common one. In order to preserve the doubling
(though the adjective->noun structure's going to have to be dropped) I'm thinking "friends who really were friends" right now.
森野の母親は、僕が娘の恋人であることを疑っていなかった。娘には友達らしい友達がおら
ず、家にだれかから電話がかかってきたのは小学生のとき以来であることを説明した。
娘には友達らしい友達がおらず、
For her daughter, friend-like friends not being present, ...
娘には友達らしい友達がおらず、家にだれかから電話がかかってきたのは
For her daughter, without friend-like friends, the house getting a telephone call from someone ...
娘には友達らしい友達がおらず、家にだれかから電話がかかってきたのは小学生のとき以来である
For her daughter, without friend-like friends, the house getting a telephone call from someone, that is since elementary school times. (this use of "since" is not directly translatable, I suspect, but I've done so anyway, for consistency. And yes, it's "since" as in "since X" = "from X to now", not "from" -- I haven't seen "以来" used in any other way... except in this sentence. I suspect that the direct meaning of "the doing of X is since Y" is "the doing of X is an event of the time period from Y to now" or "the doing of X is an event that is singular in the time period from Y to now" -- or "for her daughter, being without any friend-like friends, this is the first time the house has gotten a phone call since elementary school times.")
娘には友達らしい友達がおらず、家にだれかから電話がかかってきたのは小学生のとき以来であること
The fact that, for her daughter, without friend-like friends, the house getting a telephone call from someone, is since elementary school times.
娘には友達らしい友達がおらず、家にだれかから電話がかかってきたのは小学生のとき以来であることを説明した。
She explained that, for her daughter, without friend-like friends, the house getting a telephone call from someone, is since elementary school times.
(de-translate-esed)
She explained that, for her daughter, without any friends who were truly friends, the house getting a telephone call from someone, was something that hadn't happened since elementary school times.
Okay, so there's a tour of my twisted path from Japanese to English. I won't make a habit of doing this...
(Where have I heard that before... ?)
(One thing ... I'm not sure I will be able to forgive you for that Michael Jackson mnemonic. Hopefully I can forget it sometime soon. Stupid memorable mnemonics... Also, since I wrote way too much, and you probably have forgotten it by now: Could you check my comments near the "Was she kidnapped by the criminal using brute force, I wonder?" sentence? I'm not entirely certain about the sense in which that question was asked.)