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彼に集中するよう注意を促しといたよ。
The translation I have says “I urged him to concentrate.”
I am having trouble in two places.
1. What is よう doing in there?
2. What is 促しといた?
よう is added after plain form verbs to mean in “in that sort of way”. As usual, that made no sense. Example time.
聞こえるように言ってください。 （聞こえる=to be audible)
Please say it in such a way that I can hear you.
死ななかったようにしました。
I did it in such a way that I didn’t die.The second question has three parts 促し と いた. (I think the last part should actually be いった)
促し is like a prompt or a suggestion
and といった means “said”I could be wrong but I hope that helps.
There is a recording of the sentence. I can’t believe smart.fm hasn’t shut down their media servers yet.
http://assets3.smart.fm/assets/legacy/JLL/audio/Int/JS00907A.mp3
It doesn’t sound like いった to my beginner’s ears.
I also found another use of the i-form + といた construction.
前もって予約しといた方がいいですよ。
The translation says “You had better make a reservation in advance.” I don’t have a recording of that one. I found some information about the idiom “…方がいい”, but nothing about 予約しといた.
Mecab says とい is from a verb called とく, and it says its form is “連用タ接続” but I can’t figure out what that means.
Ah that makes sense then. といた is the plain past form of とく “to explain” and it probably one of those verbs that gets hooked on to others in the i-form like owaru.
I found another example of i-form + とく.
券の手配しとくよ。 = “I’ll see about getting the tickets.”
I guess that makes
前もって予約しといた方がいいですよ
something like “You had better see to getting reservations in advance,” or maybe “You had better make sure you get reservations in advance.”
I also found another use of the idiom 注意を促す, and it looks like it means “call attention to” or “bring attention to.”
警察たちはすりへの注意を促した。 = The policeman called our attention to the danger of pickpockets.
Putting it all together, I think we have
彼に集中するよう注意を促しといたよ
is like “I saw to it to call his attention to acting in a concentrating sort of way.”
~とく is the casual/abbreviated form of ~ておく, meaning “to do in advance”.
See “Using the 「～ておく」 form as preparation for the future” here:
So it is a contraction after all. The WWWJDIC gives the example below in its entry for とく, which it explains is a contraction.
窓が閉まっているか確かめとけ = See that the window is closed
Contractions are very difficult to deal with if you don’t already know about them. I looked around and found this list:
http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/colloquial-contractions.html
One notable omission from the list is the contraction のだ -> んだ.
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