「大勢」とは英語の「en masse」ですか人々にだけで付きますか。
どうもありがとう！
英語
Is 大勢 equivalent to the English en masse or does it only apply to people?
Thank you!
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I can’t recall ever seeing it not applied to people, and the Japanese dictionaries I have on Yomichan always specify it’s for people. Every definition is a variation on “たくさんの人。多人数。”
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I would say this expression is also only really applied to people.
Like “the company board resigned en masse” or “the protesters marched en masse up the street”
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The OED has several quotes where it’s applied to things (more than it has for people, in fact):
- “The transition from gneiss to granite en mass, is not uncommon.”
- “The things were…lifted en masse to the dresser.”
Those are both 19th century quotes (hence the variant spelling in the first one); here are some newspaper uses from the last week:
- Rail ticket offices to shut en masse in next three years
- artists are struggling to make a living from live performance and smaller venues are closing en masse due to rocketing cost
The people usage is pretty common, though, especially for acts like resignations.
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I think these expressions mean different things. 大勢 is “crowd”, en masse means that something is happening to a large amount of something (could be people, but could be other things). Unless you mean 大勢に, which would still refer to people I believe.
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大勢 can be used adverbally without a particle, so to me the overlap works.
[something]が大勢出てきた (something came out in large numbers / en masse)
Of course, 大勢 is also a noun, while “en masse” is not.
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人々は最も人々のことを書いているからと思っています。「The ducks roved the streets en masse」なんて聞いたことがあります。何もに当てはまると思います。
皆さん、ありがとうございました！
英語
I think that’s because people mostly write about people things. I’ve heard things like ‘The ducks roved the streets en masse’. I think it applies to anything.
Thank you, everyone!
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