すぎない vs なさすぎる

Japanese Language Grammar
1

Hey,

i’ve just learned about using すぎる to express that something is too much and im wondering what the difference between conjugating the adjective and conjugating the すぎる-part is.
Also google translate can’t seem to find the difference between 寒すぎる and 寒くなさすぎる and is translating both as “too cold”.

Example :
寒すぎない (not being too cold?)
and
寒くなさすぎる (not being really cold?)

Bunpro had the examples たべすぎない (not eating too much) and たべなさすぎる (barely eating something/ eating too little / not eating much), while ive also heared that you only ever conjugate the すぎる-part, so I’m kinda confused and it would be really nice if someone could explain the difference.

Many thanks in advance :smile:

2

My take on it:

たべすぎない (eating not too much) negates the すぎる part
たべなさすぎる (too much of not eating) negates the たべる part

3

As @prouleau said,

たべすぎない sounds in the moment to me of ‘don’t eat too much.’
While たべなさすぎる sounds like lately someone hasn’t been eating much or at all.

I think of the two as

  1. Don’t eat too much.
  2. [someone] hasn’t been eating much.
4

I ghink it is quite literally what it says, so break the sentence (verb) down into its components.

食べすぎない => たべる to eat + すぎない not too much => isn’t eating too much (not crossing that line to eating too much)
(X を) 食べなさすぎる => 食べない not eating + すぎる too much => doing too much of not eating (X), hardly eating (X)

Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar agrees on this.

5

@prouleau @Moritaro @Saida
Thanks a lot everybody, this really helped me understand it better :smile: