I watched a TV show with Japanese subtitles, and noticed the sentence: “秘密にしててほんとごめん。”
I was a bit confused because didn’t know why there was a second て after the te-form of する. Because I didn’t know how to look this up in my textbook or on Google, I asked a certain AI chatbot about it.
It tells me that してて is actually a contraction of していて (te-form of する and いる).
秘密にしててほんとごめん。 meaning “I’m really sorry for keeping it a secret.”
秘密にしてほんとごめん。(without the second て) would only mean “I’m really sorry for making it a secret.”
Is this correct?
Yes, it’s correct. It’s not uncommon to have shortcuts in Japanese, especially if the connecting sounds are phonetically similar-ish. Casual masculine Japanese is particularly guilty of shortening up words and phrases, but it’s common for both sexes.