Wanikani accepts Natural, Obvious, etc. for the meaning of 当たり前, but for the most part, I have known it to mean “Of Course”, like "当たり前だよ!” However, “Of Course” is not listed as one of the accepted translations (I added it to my own list). Just curious if what I learned/understood in the past is accurate or not?
Edit: looks like I was wrong. Sorry! Please ignore this now but I’ll keep it
Looking at Jisho, it doesn’t seem to have that meaning. From Jisho
- natural; reasonable; obvious
- usual; common; ordinary; commonplace; the norm
However, 当たり前田のクラッカー is a word that means “of course” when looking at the results. Perhaps you saw it there.
I always kinda read 当たり前 as “It speaks for itself“
I’ve also seen it in books used as a “Yes, of course I’ll do that for you“ when asked for a favour.
So yea, I’d say 当たり前 can sometimes mean “Of course
‘Of course’ is a good option for a translation. I just listened to a podcast yesterday where the Japanese speaker used 当たり前 to refer to common sense.
It’s one of those versatile words that not a single translation can capture, but the gist of all the translations is that something is easily evident or to be expected. ‘Of course’ certainly fits that bill in a number of contexts and your understanding of it in those earlier contexts was probably the correct one.
Jisho has a note on this entry that it is a play on words, combining 当たり前 and some other brand name. I’m not entirely sure of the joke or context, but saying 当たり前田のクラッカー out of context would probably come off as a bit strange
I think “of course” plays off the “natural(ly); obvious(ly)” meanings. There are definitely times where “of course” works for “当たり前,” but dictionaries usually will not have every single gloss that a word/phrase can potentially be translated as, so something not being there doesn’t necessarily mean out of hand that it can’t be. I’ll often glance through the example sentences too if there are any to see if they’ve got other ways something can be translated.
Like, I have “Makes sense” noted as an alt translation for “確かに” in Shirabe Jisho, which defines it simply as “surely; certainly” because I’ve come across instances before where that would be better suited/sound more natural in English