# ヒアリング頂けたら参考になります



## adexx

Hi guys,

I came across this in an (business) email:"... この案件の難しさをヒアリング頂けたら参考になります。"
Basically I understand 参考になります means "to be of use/useful", but what does the whole sentence mean?


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## xiaolijie

Without context, it would be something like: _"It'd be useful if I can hear about the difficulties of the case."_


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## adexx

Thanks, I think I got it now. 
Based on the whole email, I guess it'd be "It'd be useful if you could ask (for me) about the difficulties of this project".


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## Ocham

This sentence is incorrect in any aspect and means nothing. I wish I could ask the Japanese who wrote this sentence what he meant by "ヒアリングいただけたら".  You'd be better off forgetting it.


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## Aoyama

I agree with Ocham (even if xiaolijie has a good -and creative- guess about the meaning). At first, I thought that ヒアリング頂けたら meant "if I received ear rings (from you)" which means nothing here and mixes hearing and ear ring. ヒアリング is normally used in Japanese in language classes ("hearing" exercise or practice), in rare cases as in "political hearing". I have never seen or heard it as in the example cited here.
To go back to a probable (but a bit farfetched) meaning :
_"It'd be useful / it would serve as a reference if I can/could hear about the difficulties of the case."_


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## mikun

Hi,
We use 'hearing' when subordinate people explain to the upper organization.
In this case, the receiver who get explanation is you,  Mr. adexx, the explainer is mail sender.
The meaning will be,
If you could receive my explanation, I hope you will understand how I'm endevouring to the difficult problem. And this is a good chance to me to understand your humanities.


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## adexx

Thank you all very much,

Actually this is an email from my boss, who is Japanese (and working in Japan), and he's kind of old, so it's surprising to hear that it might be grammatically incorrect. Really.

For context, he's talking about a business talk between us and a customer. From all of the explanations above, I'd assume that it means "It'd be useful if they (customer) could listen to our explanation (we receive their "hearing") of the difficulties of the project..."

As for the use of ヒアリング, maybe (just maybe) it's some kind of strictly business-related term, so it's so rare to hear such word in everyday conversation?


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## Aoyama

It's not rare, it's almost unprecedented ... Now, the way I see it is that your boss doesn't speak English so well but wants to use so-called English terms (in Japanese) to sound "cool" (whatever that may mean). A common (and detestable) practice. The less you know English, the more you want to use "gai rai go" ...
Now, about that "hearing" thing, I would translate it as "we'd be glad to get some feed back about this problem, it would help us in the future".


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## Flaminius

The problem about ヒアリングいただく is that it is the wrong version of ヒアリングしていただく.  The word ヒアリング itself is quite a common one.  いただく can directly modify a gerund (the adverbial form or the verb stem/root) if the verb is autochthonous or Sino-Japanese vocabulary (e.g., お召し上がりいただく, ご理解いただく).  European-origin verbs must always indicate that they are verbs by means of _-suru_.  I think this kind of mistake is more common than expected.  After all, there is no morphological difference between Sino-Japanese verbs and verbs from European languages.

The only and minute difference is that the former can optionally take _go-_, the prefix of respect while the latter cannot.



			
				adexx said:
			
		

> For context, he's talking about a business talk between us and a  customer. From all of the explanations above, I'd assume that it means  "It'd be useful if they (customer) could listen to our explanation (we  receive their "hearing") of the difficulties of the project..."


Now we know that the "subject" of ヒアリングする and 参考になる is your customers.  [To be more precise, the customers are the agent of the former and the experiencer of the latter.]


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## Aoyama

> The word ヒアリング itself is quite a common one


is it really common in that usage ? So that would then be ヒアリングshitekudasai ... A bit strange ...


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## Flaminius

> So that would then be ヒアリングshitekudasai


This means "to hear an opinion."  Indeed it's a bit strange in this context.  If what you need to say is "express an opinion during a hearing", then the Japanese is something like ヒアリングで述べる.  If you want to express the same but with a third party being the experiencer, then we say ヒアリングしてもらう or ヒアリングしていただく (have someone hear).


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## Aoyama

> Indeed it's a bit strange in this context.


 that's what I had in mind, all the way ...


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## Flaminius

We do agree that ヒアリングいただく is strange.  And I must say, Ao, that your suggestion (ヒアリングしてください) is also strange, given the context explained by *adexx* #7 _supra_.  Your attempt would mean that the reader of the email, *adexx* ispe, is going to hear the difficulties in the project.


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## Aoyama

> your suggestion (ヒアリングしてください) is also strange


right, I also thought so when I wrote "a bit strange".


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