I just got 大規模 as a new item and am confused as to why it won’t accept big scale as an answer. Is large scale and big scale not the same in English? Would appreciate the input by some native speaker before I send an email to the wanikani team. Pretty sure I say ‘on a big scale’ all the time so it’s hard for me to come up with large scale as an answer.
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I think it’s just vibes based that large is right and big is wrong. Like if you called a television a telesight. Technically a synonym but it doesn’t feel right.
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Had a similar thing with ‘Great duty’ vs. ‘Big duty’. The former is better English – I suppose. But I just added the latter one to the synonyms. I understand the meaning, that’s good enough for me.
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How did you add it to synonyms? Do you mean actually in Wanikani? Can you just do that or do you need an extension?
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If you go to an item you can add a user synonym in the meaning section.
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Thank you! I didn’t know this function exists.
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The mostly adverbial “on a big scale” is reasonable English to me. Add it as user synonym if it’s annoying you. However, on a large scale or a grand scale are more common (a WK alternative meaning for the adverbial 大きく is on a grand scale).
I’d say that goes double when it’s used as an adjective. “A large-scale experiment” for example, sounds more correct/normal than “a big-scale experiment”. Could you say a ship is a boat on a big scale? Yes, but there I’m stretching it on purpose. It feels like there’s an implied verb “done on a big scale”.
As a noun? Well the meaning shifts. The map had a big scale printed on the bottom. The Maharajah was presented with his weight in gold, which had been measured using a large scale. I really don’t think this is what’s meant! (Although I might be wrong.)
All the context sentences show 大規模 used adjectivally, so large would be better.
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Yeah, I wouldn’t say it’s extreme as that, in that it’s not technically wrong, but doesn’t sounds like natural English. Though I struggle to say why!
You can say “we’re planning to do this on a much bigger scale” I think, but if you talk about a “large scale operation”, “big scale” doesn’t work instead.
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Yeah, my analogy was bad.
I think it’s like Big is referring more to physical size, so for an abstract concept Large works better?
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That’s probably a good way of looking at it.
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Need it be more complex than “large scale” being a collocation? (that said, I’d 100% use the undo script or anki script to mark “big scale” as correct; you’re testing Japanese, not English)
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