I found a few sentences like this while reading, and although I understand that the characters marked with と and に are doing the action together, what is the purpose of marking one with　に instead. The latest sentence I found with it (ゼロの使い魔１７):

そして、ド・オルニエールのそばを通るために一番可能性が高いと思われるヴェル・エル街道は才人とシエスタとギーシュにマリコルヌ、そしてティファニアが向かうことになった。

Why is マリコルヌ marked with に rather than と, like the rest?

I dont' see anything strange with that sentence.

For particles, you should buy "All About Particles".
http://www.amazon.com/All-About-Particle...+particles

The best book I've ever read on particles. Short, sweet, and inexpensive. :-)
When reading, circle every particle and then match it up with one of the usages listed in the book.


"と" has multiple usages. For example it can be used to exhaustively list items. For example "Me and Jim" (BUT NOBODY ELSE). "と" can also be used as "with" as in と一緒に".

I can't list everything, but the book has 14 different usages for "と" and 20 different usages for "ni".

When looking at particles, try not to translate them directly into words. Think of them in terms of how they are used. Particles are function words. They served a function in specific situations. You need to figure out what the particle is trying to indicate.

Btw, マリコルヌ is NOT marked with に.
に is marking "才人とシエスタとギーシュ".

Oh yeah, my bad. It is marking ギーシュ. I guess my question is just why the に there isn't a と. Why wouldn't it be 才人とシエスタとギーシュとマリコルヌ、そしてティファニアが向かう?

[Zgarbas]

Isn't it because group 1(才人とシエスタとギーシ) is facing group 2(マリコルヌ、そしてティファニア)?

Zgarbas Wrote:Isn't it because group 1(才人とシエスタとギーシ) is facing group 2(マリコルヌ、そしてティファニア)?

That is what I thought too. 才人とシエスタとギーシにマリコルヌ、そしてティファニアが向かう to me means that マリコレヌ and ティファニア set off towards the others along the highway that is most likely to take them alongside ド・オルニエール.

P.S. Reading those names is a nightmare...

That was my reading as well; it's a little tricky because the subject comes after the Xに but it's basically XにYが向かう

SendaiDan Wrote:P.S. Reading those names is a nightmare...

So I'm not the only person that thought that.
Katakana is a nightmare sometimes.

The worst is when you're singing Japanese karaoke and a bunch of long katakana
words come up. They can be so hard to read quickly. Spelling out foreign names with kanji might've been easier for me.

That may vary well be a possibility (that they were facing each other) but it seems kind of strange in the context of the passage. It was just talking about the routes different people were taking to look for someone (ie. this group went down this street, this group went down that street.) I've seen other examples of this pattern, and it seems like に doesn't really act as the verb's target in those cases (ie. he was facing x type thing) but rather something to do with emphasizing the characters in the list. If I find anymore examples, I'll try to post them.

And yeah, the names are really annoying. The only person with Kanji in their name is the main character and even that is written in katakana most of the time. But you get used to it after reading them 1000 times lol.

Why not post the whole paragraph?
Then we can comment on it.

My dictionary says that 敵に向かう means "advance on the enemy".
So maybe group 2 advanced on (or caught up with) group 1.

I found another example of the pattern, again from the same series (sorry about the names, lol)

アンリエッタは、気分が優れないといって、夜の晩餐会《ばんさんかい》の不参加をガリア側に告げ、腹心の人物たちを自室に呼び寄せて、イザベラの来訪を待った。部屋に呼び寄せたのは、ルイズ、才人《さいと》、そしてギーシュ。タバサの友人であるキュルケに、アニエス。

All of the characters were not in the room as far as I know. The に is in the last line, I just provided you guys with some context if you want it.

And another one I just found.

集まったリュティス市民でごった返すパドリオ公邸の前までやってきた才人《さいと》たちだった。才人にルイズ。そしてキュルケ。

From goo:
［並助］並列・列挙・添加・取り合わせを表す。「バター―チーズ―牛乳」「月―むら雲、花―嵐」
「有識(いうそく)―公事(くじ)のかた、人の鏡ならんこそいみじかるべけれ」〈徒然・一〉