I foresee this somehow ending up in D&D

One of the more useful explainers on that point I found in the process.

Ah yes, counters. The recent spate of bear attacks has taught me that there is a specific counter for large animals which is the exact same character one would use for head 頭 (atama) but uses the Chinese reading (tou).

I also believe we need more LEXX

So what they are actually saying is, "Because that movie is very interesting, you should try to see it once."

2 is the correct answer but it's the most lawful evil question I've ever seen.

You **could** can write it as 見て見る but nobody fucking does that. It's so bloody weird to use the kanji with てみる that it didn't even click with me as 見てみる, which is instantly recognizable.

This comes down to 見る and てみる sounding the same when said aloud but meaning different things but also technically sharing the same kanji 見

見る is "to see"
てみる is an add-on to the verb that says "to try and do the verb"

To say "to try and see", a sane person would write, 見てみる

Simpler times.

Though the cop might more naturally say 泳いでもいいです。

But I think, the nuance is much clearer for me now than it was this time yesterday.

そうか。例えば、

選手は「泳げる」と言った
警察は「泳ぐことができる」と言った

That is literally all the setup. Two ways of saying the same thing. And even 食べられる is more direct and potentially more correct we're offsetting that with john-san, which would tell me I need to be more polite and stiff this us ことができる。

I can not find the point of dissent between them.

But I'm still not sure. Someone on stack exchange said that　食べることができる speaks more to the physical ability to eat versus 食べられる being more about potential to choose to eat.

Verb+こと puts the verb into a noun form, the difference between, "I eat bears" and "The bear is eating"

With that being the case, maybe MAYBE ことができる is a little unnatural because we technically have two subjects?

Every freaking source I have says that these two grammar points are functionally identical.

ことができる can be seen as a little more stiff.

The only thing I can think of is that because we already have a topic (John) and a subject (natto) maybe we can't use ことができる because...

The verb is 食べる to eat/will eat.

When it is conjugated to 食べられる it means, "Can eat" "John-san can eat Natto"

The verb 食べる＋ことができる also means "can eat"

The particle が following なっとう (natto) means we are using Natto as a subject not a direct object - so we're eating it, we're observing potential

Annnnny Eridani Light Horse, back to JLPT prep so I don't have to process emotions.