I was watching the first episode of Samurai High School with Japanese subtitles today, and I came across this line:

黙って聞いてれば調子に乗ってばかばかしい。

Is there a reason why 聞いてれば is used instead of 聞けば? Are they interchangeable? Thanks for any help.

聞いてれば = the te form: 聞いていれば

Thanks, but I was wondering why the te form is used instead of the plain ba form? I probably should have put some more lines of dialogue to add some context, which I will do now:

俺が見た夢と　まるで同じ内容がその本に出て来たの！
（望月圭子）　へぇ～
しかも主人公の名前が同じ？
名前だけじゃないよ　年も！
（望月優奈）　ただの偶然でしょ？
そんな偶然があるかよ？
あるんじゃない？
（圭子）　黙って聞いてれば調子に乗って　ばかばかしい。

In case you have the episode downloaded, the line starts around 14:51.

Thanks.

The te -iru form of verbs has a different range of possible meanings. Sorry, I guess I'm still not understanding your inquiry. I've been dense lately.

I mean, the いる form after a verb means that you're staying in that state. So here it just sounds like 黙って聞けば means that you are being quiet and listening for just a moment. 黙って聞いて（い）れば sounds like "if you be quiet and listen for a while." Or it could mean that the listener is already in that state--"If you would stay quiet and listen."

Tzadeck Wrote:I mean, the いる form after a verb means that you're staying in that state. So here it just sounds like 黙って聞けば means that you are being quiet and listening for just a moment. 黙って聞いて（い）れば sounds like "if you be quiet and listen for a while." Or it could mean that the listener is already in that state--"If you would stay quiet and listen."

Is that what it is? I was originally thinking "Be quiet—if I/we keep listening to you, we'll get carried away with your idiocy." Or something like that. Then I came up with 12 other translations, all most likely wrong since I keep forgetting to study Japanese.

Not that it affects the essential point about te iru, which I'm not sure if the OP was asking.

nest0r Wrote:Is that what it is? I was originally thinking "Be quiet—if I/we keep listening to you, we'll get carried away with your idiocy." Or something like that. Then I came up with 12 other translations, all most likely wrong since I keep forgetting to study Japanese.

Not that it affects the essential point about te iru, which I'm not sure if the OP was asking.

That's probably the right interpretation--I was just concentrating on his first post and didn't read the conversation so carefully. So I ended up I using the wrong subject for my translations.

I think Tzadeck is right on 黙って聞いていれば. The subject isn't going to change like that in the middle of a phrase with no indication.

So what does 黙って聞いてれば調子に乗ってばかばかしい。 mean here, if the person doing the being quiet and listening is the person describing the dream?

It's pretty hard to get that last sentence without seeing the episode, or knowing what comes after it, haha.

Sounds like:
?(A?): It's as if what I saw in my dream is coming out into that book!
B: (Stunned)--Not only that, isn't the hero's name the same?
And it's not just the name, also the year!
A: It's gotta just be a coincidence, right?
That kind of coincidence just happens!
I mean, doesn't it?
B: If (?) stays quiet and keeps listening (to you?), (?) will get carried away and (?) will be ridiculous/stupid.

Sounds to me like now like,
"If I just keep quiet and listen to you I'm gonna get carried away and be a fool!" In other words, I think nest0r's mostly right, just that the 黙る and 聞く are referring to the same person.

The reason it sounds strange to me even like that is that B seems like the one who's being over-the-top (A is saying that it's a coincidence), so why would listening to A make B get carried away? Need to know more context.

Thanks for all the help guys, and sorry for the confusion. The subtitle file doesn't have names by each line. I just copied and pasted it. Here I added a couple more lines that come after the line in question and made it clear who is saying what:

Son: 俺が見た夢と　まるで同じ内容がその本に出て来たの！
Mom: へぇ～
しかも主人公の名前が同じ？
Son: 名前だけじゃないよ　年も！
Daughter: ただの偶然でしょ？
Son: そんな偶然があるかよ？
Mom: あるんじゃない？
黙って聞いてれば調子に乗って　ばかばかしい。
望月なんて名字はどこにだってあるんだから
偶然に決まってるじゃない。
Son: でも夢で…。

Tzadeck, I think you're right. Maybe the mom is saying something like, "If you would stay quiet and listen, you would realize you're getting carried away and being stupid"? It definitely would make sense, but I could be missing something.

Yep I guess it must be one phrase at the beginning. I kept thinking there was a pause or full stop but I just checked and there isn't.