A: What’s going on? I heard someone shouting.
B: The guy’s berating his staff again.
A: Not again!
B: Yes, he’s going too far. It’s terrible to hear.
In this situation, what should you say ‘It’s terrible to hear’ in Japanese?
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B：聞いてられない。
Note: This is not a word-for-word translation.
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A word-for-word translation
B：聞くと恐ろしい。
Others may understand what you mean, but we don’t usually say that.
In this situation, we often say 聞いてられない.
This means that you can’t bear to hear it because it’s pitiful for the person being shouted at, or because the words of the shouting man are terrible.
We also say the following in a similar sense.
聞くに耐えない。
聞いているのがつらい。
耳をふさぎたくなる。
聞き苦しい。
You can also use these phrases when you have to listen to bad sounds, such as sounds that are terribly out of tune or too loud.
