Distracting

Often I want to say something is 'distracting' in Japanese, but struggle to think of anything appropriate. Today a friend taught me one way of saying it:

気が散る　（きがちる）　－　Be distracted

If you look at the kanji, it really does make sense. I'll try and make an example sentence:

きれいな人が喫茶店にいて、気が散って勉強に集中が出来なかった。

Comments

[投稿： chris hughes]

なるほど。俺にも勉強になったねん。

you can also say 気を散らす in a transitive sentence to suggest distracting someone's attention. Or put it in the passive and it means you are distracted by something.

I learnt this phrase when I was in Japan:

誰かの注意を逸らす　 to distract the attention of someone

例：友達が先生の注意を逸らしている隙に、私はテストの解答紙を盗み見た。

Again in the passive form I think it can mean to be distracted by something or someone.

There seem to be so many ways of saying this it is unbelievable. Here is one similar in some ways to what you wrote.

気を取られる

例：喫茶で座っている時にミニスカートを着た可愛い女の子に気を取られて隣のサラリーマンの膝にコーヒーを零してしまった。

まあ、ありえるんじゃない ：）

[投稿： Darren]

Thanks for the input. Who would have thought there were so many ways of saying this kind of thing?

誰かの注意を逸らす（そらす）- that's a new one to me.

I especially like your last example - indeed similar to mine.

There are lots of new kanji for me to learn in your one comment alone!

[投稿： aiko]

Darrenさん、こんばんは☆今日の記事も参考になりました(^^)/
I tried to make sentence by using the word "be distracted" in English. Is my sentence correct?

Example:　When I was studying English, TV distracted me.

[投稿： Darren]

You need 'the' to sound more natural:

'When I was studying English the TV distracted me.'

[投稿： ば～]

Long time no see.

なるほど、気が散るときはdistractedって言えばいいんですね。いままでdisturbedしか思いつきませんでした。ここに来るといつも勉強になります。

[投稿： Darren]

ば～さん、コメントありがとうございます。

この言葉がよく使えると思います。Disturbは微妙に違うんですよ。僕の例えだとdisturbを使わないです。説明うまく出来ないんですがdisturbのほうがdistractよりも強い意味だと思います。