[aDoIJG] A – J 💮 A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar

[fallynleaf]

風に

According to the notes, the 風 is the noun ふう meaning “wind”, which has extended meanings of “appearance”, “style”, “manner”, or “tone”. I thought it was interesting that they described it like this because I feel like when it’s read alone as ふう, it’s always the other meanings and never the wind…

S という風に is used when one wants to quote something as if to evoke in the mind of the listener the manner in which the original communication was made. The meaning is “the content to the effect that ~”. It can also have a meaning of “in such a way that ~”. I feel like I constantly forget the exact nuance of the S という風に construction when I see it, so I’ll try to remember this.

N1 風の N2 means N2 with a style of N1.

The adverbial phrase 風に can be replaced by ように if the construction is S という風に. If it’s {こんな/そんな/あんな/どんな}風に, it has to be replaced by {この/その/あの/どの}ように. N 風に has to be replaced by N のように.

Here's an example from the Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling experimental Inspiration show on 2024.01.06, where there was a battle royal to determine the number one contender for the Princess of Princess Championship. (Kamiyu as usual had to make my life as a fan translator harder haha by saying an untranslatable pun...)

Hard mode: here’s the video.

上福「渡辺未詩、aka筋肉。ピンクの筋肉ピンニクがああやって一番に勝って、先輩後輩とかあんまり言うのあれですけど一番あのなかではキャリアがあれなんですけど、あんな風に勝ってみんな蹴散らして、先輩たちね、未詩ちゃんのこと教えてる人たちはとても教え甲斐があるんじゃないでしょうか。ああやって抜かしていっていくみたいな感じが。私は普段すっごい練習して頑張って頑張ってっていうのではなくて、未詩ちゃんはずっと頑張っててほかの人もなんですけど。なんかこう、頑張ってる人見ると邪魔したくなっちゃうみたいな気持ちがあって、頭使って上手いことやろうって。なんかよくめちゃくちゃ子役からずっと歌の練習めっちゃしてもなかなか売れない歌手がいると思いきやTikTokでちょっと歌ってみたらソッコー紅白出るみたいな人も世の中いるんで、そっちになろうかなと思ったんですけど、やっぱプロレスってのはね練習しなきゃいけないっていうのを目の当たりにしたんでね、これからデビューする練習生のみなさん未詩ちゃんを見習って練習をたくさんしましょう！サヨナラ！」

Kamifuku: “Miu Watanabe, a.k.a. Muscles. Pink Muscles—Pinkles—took first place, and I don’t generally talk in terms of seniors/juniors, especially when it comes to career length, but winning like that and kicking everyone out must mean that for our senpais, for the people who train Miu-chan, there’s value and reward in teaching her. It feels like she’s overtaking me. I’m really not all about training hard and doing my best all the time, but Miu-chan always works hard, and others are like that, too. When I see someone working hard, I feel like I want to get in their way, so I will try to use my brain and do something skillfully. There are singers who’ve been practicing since they were child actors and they hardly sell at all, but there are also people in this world who sing a little on TikTok and then immediately appear on like Kohaku, so I thought I should be there, too, but I had to face the harsh reality that you do in fact have to practice with wrestling. So, to all the trainees who will debut from now on, let’s all follow Miu-chan’s example and train a lot! Goodbye!”

がち

Side note, but I noticed that this book has a tendency to (がち lol) use 明日(あす) instead of 明日(あした). I feel like in the media I read/watch, it’s almost always あした, so I wonder why they made that editorial choice. Was あす more commonly used when this dictionary was published? Am I overestimating just how much more common あした is?

For this entry, the notes specify that がち is usually used to express an undesirable tendency in someone or something. When it modifies a noun, either の or な can be used. Also, it can be paraphrased using the adverbs よく “often” or しばしば “frequently”. It’s often used with adverbs like ややもすると, ともすると, とかく for emphasis.

The suffix ぎみ can also express the idea of “tend to” in some contexts. The major difference is that がち usually describes a general tendency in someone or something while ぎみ describes a visible indication of a tendency. In addition, ぎみ also expresses the idea of “touch of” or “a little”. がち doesn’t have this meaning.

Couldn’t find any examples of this one in TJPW. I do have a 日本語の森 video to share which talks about the differences between ぎみ, がち, and っぽい.

がたい

According to the notes, がたい is used when it is virtually impossible for someone to do something. So 許しがたい in key sentence A is equivalent to 許せない.

がたい, にくい, and づらい all express similar ideas (difficulty in doing something), but がたい is usually only used in written language or formal speech, and the other two can be used in both written and spoken language. Also, unlike がたい, にくい and づらい don’t imply virtual impossibility.

がたい and づらい can be used only with verbs which require an agent, but にくい can be used with verbs that don’t require an agent. And づらい is used when doing something is physically (sometimes psychologically) hard on the agent, so it always describes undesirable situations.

I found a sad example... This was from the TJPW press conference on 2023.05.08 when Yuka Sakazaki announced that she was going to be graduating at the end of the year...

Here’s the transcript and the full video (I’m not going to timestamp it).

――卒業を決めた一番の理由は？ いつぐらいから考えていた？

――What is the main reason you decided to graduate? How long have you been thinking about it?

坂崎「決めたのは漠然と「いつかはやめないといけない」と思っていて。学生時代も高校3年間とか期間が決まっているという認識が私の中であって、東京女子は特別だからこそ、ずっとはいれないなと。でもやっぱりみんなと離れがたいし、自分で決断するのがすごくつらくて。で、あっと言う間に10年経って、でも10年過ぎちゃったら決断できないな、離れられないなと思ったから10年というので卒業させていただこうかなと思いました」

Sakazaki: "I’d had the vague thought that ‘someday, I’ll have to quit’. I understood my time in TJPW as being something with a fixed period, similar to how in school, you’re only in high school for three years, and because TJPW is so special, I couldn’t stay forever. But of course it’s difficult to say goodbye to everyone, and to muster the resolve on my own. Then, in the blink of an eye, ten years had passed. I thought if more than ten years pass, I’ll never be able to decide. I’ll never be able to leave. It’s the tenth year, so I thought ‘I guess I should get them to let me graduate.’”

Knowing the nuance of がたい makes it even sadder

逆に

MY FORMER ENEMY.

The amount of time it took for me to wrap my brain around this one… . If you scroll back far enough in the pro wrestling thread, you can see me repeatedly get it wrong, haha. Thankfully, I think I might have it down now? Still often a huge pain to translate, though…

The notes say that the basic meaning of 逆に is “conversely”, but it is often used when something takes place contrary to one’s expectation or intention (this is usually how I see it used).

When 逆に is preceded by a clause, the clause often involves たら, と, or のに.

According to the related expressions section, when 逆に expresses the idea of “contrary to one’s expectation/intention,” it can be paraphrased as かえって. But if it simply means “conversely” without that sense, かえって can’t be used.

Here's an example from the last TJPW translation I finished, which had a pretty entertaining moment backstage after Daydream (tag team of Rika Tatsumi and Miu Watanabe) lost in the tag tournament final on 2024.02.10.

Hard mode: here’s the video (the video is really good for this one).

辰巳「あああああー。もうダメだ。よくない、よくない、これは。悪い夢だ。悪夢だ。未詩ごめーん」

Tatsumi: “Ahhh. It’s no good. Not good, not good, this is not good. It’s a bad dream. A nightmare. Sorry, Miu.”

未詩「悔しい。白昼夢でベルト取ったのも優勝したのもけっこう前だったから、ここまで来たからには私も（両国）2試合する覚悟はできてたし、リカさんだって2試合も3試合もするって言ってたし。でも、でじもんもいっぱい2人で歩んできただけの闘いがあって。まさかでじもんとここまで厳しい闘いになるとは思わなかったけど、でもやっぱ強かった…。でも大丈夫です。これからも白昼夢はいっぱい夢見続けるし、夢をまだまだ叶え続けたい」

Miu: “It’s disappointing. Daydream winning the belts and winning the tournament both happened quite a while ago, so I was prepared to do two matches (at Ryogoku) as long as we made it that far, and Rika-san said she’d do two or three matches, too. But it’s thanks to the long road that Daisy Monkey has walked to get here that we could have such a battle. I never expected it would be such a tough fight against Daisy Monkey, but they were really strong… It’s alright, though. Daydream will keep dreaming from here, and I want to keep making dreams come true.”

辰巳「いや、もう未来が見えない…。真っ暗です」

Tatsumi: “No, I can’t see a future anymore… It’s pitch black.”

未詩「大丈夫、大丈夫」

Miu: “It’s alright, it’ll be fine.”

辰巳「ベルトの夢も遠のいちゃったし。未詩はベルト挑戦するよね？」

Tatsumi: “My dream of having the belt is also far away. You’re challenging for it, right?”

未詩「そうですね。3月31日に国技館で」

Miu: “Yes, On March 31 at Ryogoku Kokugikan.”

辰巳「私に譲ってくれない？ その権利」

Tatsumi: “Will you hand it over to me? The right to challenge?”

未詩「なんで？」

Miu: “What?”

辰巳「私に譲ってよ」

Tatsumi: “Give it to me.”

未詩「や…だ。ダメ」

Miu: “Absolutely not. No way.”

辰巳「そしたらもう、うまくいく。すべてうまくいくから、私に譲って。お願い。お・ね・が・い！（未詩に抱き着いて懇願）」

Tatsumi: “If you do, it’ll all be fine. Everything will work out, so give it to me. Please. PLEASE!” (pleading as she grasps Miu’s hand tightly)

未詩「こわい…。だって私（バトルロイヤル）勝ったし」

Miu: “Scary… But I won (the battle royal).”

辰巳「いいじゃん、譲ってよ」

Tatsumi: “It’s fine, give it to me.”

未詩「やだ！」

Miu: “No!”

辰巳「（発狂して）うるせえ！ 譲る気になった？」

Tatsumi: (strangling Miu) “Shut up! Are you ready to give it to me?”

未詩「なんないー。恐い恐い！」

Miu: “I’m not! I’m scared, I’m scared!”

辰巳「もういい！（と先に控室へ）」

Tatsumi: “That’s enough!” (she leaves to go backstage)

未詩「なんで…なんで誰も止めないんですか？ でも、リカさんが悔しがってくれてるのは白昼夢としてはまだまだこっからあるし。逆にあれですね、いつも通りのリカさんですね（笑）。ここから白昼夢だって叶えたい夢叶えるし、私は私で両国国技館でプリプリに挑むし。ここからますます白昼夢も私も頑張りたいと思います」

Miu: “Why… why doesn’t anyone stop her? But Rika-san is just frustrated; we’ll still be teaming up as Daydream from here. Actually, acting like that, that’s Rika-san’s normal state.” (laughs) “From here, I’m going to fulfill the dreams I want to fill as Daydream, too, and I’ll be challenging on my own for the Princess of Princess championship at Ryogoku Kokugikan. I’m going to do my best both as Daydream and as myself."

[Thubanshee]

@fallynleaf

According to the related expressions section, when 逆に expresses the idea of “contrary to one’s expectation/intention,” it can be paraphrased as かえって. But if it simply means “conversely” without that sense, かえって can’t be used.

That’s funny because I was just reading the entry for かえって yesterday and thought “oh this is basically like 逆に”. I absolutely love 逆に as an expression and use it all the time, it’s so good!

@fallynleaf

Side note, but I noticed that this book has a tendency to (がち lol) use 明日(あす) instead of 明日(あした). I feel like in the media I read/watch, it’s almost always あした, so I wonder why they made that editorial choice. Was あす more commonly used when this dictionary was published? Am I overestimating just how much more common あした is?

Same. I’ve never heard あす used in casual/everyday spoken speech. If I’d have to say anything I’d guess it’s more of a poetic/formal way of phrasing?

[rodan]

@fallynleaf

逆に

MY FORMER ENEMY.

The amount of time it took for me to wrap my brain around this one… . If you scroll back far enough in the pro wrestling thread, you can see me repeatedly get it wrong, haha. Thankfully, I think I might have it down now? Still often a huge pain to translate, though…

Haha, I hope you don’t mind my highlighting past mistakes, but since it’s interesting and might help you or someone else be confident about it (and since it’s a little nostalgic for me)…

It seemed like what you instinctively wanted to do with 逆にX, especially when the expectation being contravened was only implied, is to interpret it as meaning that the opposite of X happened.
So in the clearest example I saw looking back in the thread,
boy our posts make you wish ctrl-F didn’t snap to the forum search bar huh

Miu was describing a gracious gesture Rika made (Rika put the belt she’d just lost to Miu on for her), and she said:
それがなんか逆に怖くて
with your initial translation being:
“That’s like the opposite of scary”
When rather she was saying it was scary, in contrast to the intention of the gesture.
(“that was strangely scary” would be a quick attempt at a translation)

The dictionary definition and examples all show that for 逆にX, X itself isn’t reversed - it’s the expectations/intentions/rhetorical structure around it that’s being reversed in some way.

Alas, I might never get to explain that mistake again… It’s a fun one!

[ChristopherFritz]

@fallynleaf

Side note, but I noticed that this book has a tendency to (がち lol) use 明日(あす) instead of 明日(あした). I feel like in the media I read/watch, it’s almost always あした, so I wonder why they made that editorial choice. Was あす more commonly used when this dictionary was published? Am I overestimating just how much more common あした is?

I see あす so infrequently that it stands out when I do see it.

A post by “mans_sato” says that 明日あした is more commonly spoken (【話し言葉では「あした」が主流】) and 明日あす is more commonly written (【書き言葉では「あす」が主】).

[nemurineko]

@ChristopherFritz

…
says that 明日あした is more commonly spoken (【話し言葉では「あした」が主流】) and 明日あす is more commonly written

Caveat: Pronouncing 明日 as あす instead of あした is pretty common in ‘formal spoken’ settings, like a political speech or a news broadcast.
NHK newscasters almost invariably say あす rather than あした.
You can hear it in almost every weather forecast on the radio.

[fallynleaf]

ほど

I found the way the notes worded this to be pretty confusing: “ほど can express the idea of ‘the ~, the ~’ as well as ‘(not) as ~ as ~’ and ‘so ~ that ~’.” I can understand what they mean by that from the examples, but I feel those definitions are hard to read…

Sentences that involve noun phrases before ほど can be rewritten in a slightly different order. And of course, our friend ～ば～ほど also expresses the idea of “the ~, the ~”.

I have a Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling example hot off of the press! This translation isn't even up on my blog yet, haha (though it'll be up very, very soon)! This was from their show last week on 2024.02.17, where rookie Wakana Uehara faced off one-on-one against the ace Miyu Yamashita:

Hard mode: here’s the video.

上原「今日は山下さんとの初シングルで、ずっと山下さんとは闘いたいと思ってたので。夢プロレスの時に山下さんは他の選手と最終ミッションで闘ってて。私はその試合を見て、東京女子のトップの選手はこんなに強いんだなっていうのを見てましたし。そこから夢プロレスが終わって、デビューしてから1年。まったくシングルマッチとか、タッグでもあんまり闘うことがなくて。なのでホントに今日はすごく楽しみにしてた日でした。でもやっぱり実際闘ってみて、東京女子の顔というか…エースって呼ばれてる選手はこんなにも強いんだなって思い知らされたというか。私もいつか、何年かかるか分かんないけど…いつかは東京女子のエースって言ってもらえるような選手になりたいって夢があるので。その壁が高いほど、難しい夢かもしれないけど…夢が大きいほど燃えるというか、頑張ってやってやるぞって気持ちに今なってるので。また次闘う時は強くなった姿で、いつか山下さんみたいに東京女子のエースって言ってもらえるような選手になれるように練習頑張って闘っていきたいと思います。

Uehara: “Today was my first singles match with Yamashita-san, and I’ve always wanted to fight her. When I was in Yume Pro Wrestling, Yamashita-san was fighting another wrestler in our final mission. I watched that match, and I saw just how strong the top wrestler in TJPW was. From there, Yume Pro Wrestling ended, and I made my debut a year ago. I’ve not fought in very many singles matches at all, or tag matches, for that matter. So I was really looking forward to today. But actually fighting her, the face of TJPW… the wrestler we call the ace, I realized just how strong she was. I have a dream that someday, I don’t know how long it’ll take, but… someday, I want to become a wrestler who can be called the ace of TJPW. The higher the wall, the more difficult the dream may be, but… the bigger the dream, the more fired up I get, or rather the more I feel now like I’m going to try to do my best. The next time we fight, I want to show that I’ve gotten stronger, and I’m going to keep fighting and training hard so that someday I can become the kind of wrestler who can be called the ace of TJPW like Yamashita-san.”

以外

X以外のY refers to the referent of Y excluding the referent of X, a member of Y. In X以外のY, “のY” is often omitted.

X以外に means “besides X”. に is often omitted, though if に is followed by も, it can’t be omitted.

ほか can sometimes be used in place of 以外. N以外 can be followed by のN, but Nのほか cannot. The difference between ほか and 以外 is that ほか can be used as an independent noun while 以外 is always used as a dependent noun. So ほか can appear in sentence initial position but 以外 can’t.

Another difference is that 以外 can be followed by copula conditional forms such as なら, だったら, and であれば, but ほか can’t. And 以外 can be followed by case markers such as で and と but ほか cannot.

Here are several examples from Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling's 2023.11.30 press conference, leading up to Yuki Kamifuku defending her Queen of Asia Championship against Viva Van at TJPW's 10th anniversary show:

Here’s a link to the full transcript, and here’s the video (which is partially in English), though the part quoted below is not timestamped.

上福「この団体の10周年。たぶん立ち上げる時に誰も港区で遊んでたやつが東京女子に入ってきて、7年続けてチャンピオンになってって想像してなかったと思うし。今回は坂崎さんが退団して、アメリカに行くということで。ユカさんも、それ以外の先輩もですけど、私がデビューしてからこんな風に一人で海外に行って、誰かと闘って、ベルトを持って帰ってきて。そしてまた新しい海外の選手を迎え入れて、防衛戦をするなんて誰も思わなかったと思うので。そういった意味では、あの日、私を見て不安に感じた関係者もみんなも「あ、アイツ変わったな」って思ってほしいし。私以外の選手、まだ未勝利の子だったりとか、デビューしたばかりの子たちも時間をかければ…頑張れば強くなれるし、何かを背負ったり引っ張ることができる人になれるって。もちろんプロレス以外の人に当てはめても、頑張ればどうにかなるっていうところを見せれたらいいと思います」

Kamifuku: “This is the promotion’s 10th anniversary. When it was just getting started, I don’t think anyone imagined that some girl who’d been living it up in Minato-ku would join TJPW, stick with it for seven years, and become a champion. Sakazaki-san is leaving the promotion and going to the United States. Yuka-san and my other senpais, I don’t think anyone would’ve thought that after making my debut, I’d be traveling overseas alone, fighting someone, and returning with a belt. I don’t think anyone would’ve thought that I’d welcome in another new foreign wrestler and have a title defense. In that sense, I want everyone involved who looked at me that day and felt concerned to think, ‘Oh, she’s changed.’ Other wrestlers besides me, the girls who still haven’t gotten their first win, or those who have just debuted, if you also put the time into it… You can become strong if you work hard, and you can become someone who is capable of carrying or leading something. Of course, this also applies to people outside of pro wrestling, and I’d like to show that if you work hard, they can make it.”

以上

The construction S1 以上(は) S2 can be used when one feels strongly that there should be a close, necessary connection between S1 and S2, and cannot be used to express an objective causal relation.

S1 of this construction always ends in a verb or である; it never ends in an adjective. When S1 以上 S2 means “so long as”, it can be replaced by S1 限り(は) S2. It can’t be replaced by S1 からには S2 if it means “as long as”, but otherwise the replacement is possible.

I couldn’t find an example of this in TJPW, though I confess, I gave up searching for it after going through a few dozen 以上s that were not this.

いかにも

I hadn’t learned this one before! いかにも is an adverb used when the speaker/writer wants to express their emotive conviction. It often occurs with conjectural expressions like そうだ, らしい, and ようだ / 様子だ, and it occurs with the conjunction が.

Every instance of いかにも in the examples can be replaced by 本当に “truly” without changing the meaning. The only difference is that いかにも is slightly more formal than 本当に.

The adverb 確かに can replace いかにも when the latter is used in the pattern of いかにも S1 が S2.

Couldn’t find any いかにもs in TJPW! There were plenty of 本当にs and some 確かにs, though.

[Belthazar]

@fallynleaf

いかにも is an adverb used when the speaker/writer wants to express their emotive conviction.

Yes, but I can’t help but read it as “even with squid”.

[helloorange]

---

Week 8 begins

---

and with it, a new grouping of entries! Feel free to continue to discuss any entries from A – J in this thread.

Otherwise, hop on over to [aDoIJG] K – M A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar

[Cathm2]

I might be wrong, but I think week 6 actually has 7 entries, not 6 (and I’ve noticed this because I’m still stuck at week 6).

[fallynleaf]

Imperative

“Imperatives without sentence particles are rarely used in daily conversation. In spoken Japanese they are usually used when the speaker is angry with or threatening the hearer or when the speaker shouts slogans in demonstrations”—or when the speaker is a pro wrestler! Which I guess is a job that sometimes includes all of the above.

Here's a rare non-spoken example from Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling! This is from their 2023.11.03 show, which was Saki Akai's last TJPW show before her retirement. Rika Tatsumi and Hyper Misao were two of Akai's opponents:

(Source is a fan account on twitter)

The second note in the entry says that imperatives with the sentence particle よ are used by male speakers in very casual situations (like between close friends, between a father and his child). They are also definitely used by female pro wrestlers!

Imperatives without sentence particles are frequently used in directions in written examinations and mottos, and are used in indirect speech. In this case, the corresponding direct quotations are not necessarily imperative.

一方で(は) ～ 他方で(は) ～

I’ve learned 一方で(は) before, but I think this might be my first time encountering 他方で(は)? I got curious and looked it up in the index for the advanced volume, and I believe the 一方で that I’ve learned is actually that one and not whatever this construction is supposed to be.

Laughed a bit at example (d) talking about answering machines being unnatural because you can’t talk directly with the other person. Oh how different modern communication is now in a post-internet world…

The single note for this entry says that this construction is used to give two contrasting facts about a given topic. Or in other words, it’s used to show both sides of the same coin so that the hearer/reader can get a total picture of an action/state.

Couldn’t find any 一方でs of any sort in my TJPW translations!

上

I couldn’t remember if I’d formally learned this one before or not. I really like how the note breaks this one down by showing the different ways it can be interpreted and some examples of more specific phrases that can be used in place of it.

Not going to search for examples, though, because I typed this into the ctrl+f bar in my most recent translation document and very abruptly remembered that I translate for a 上原（うえはら） and a 上福（かみふく）, so there was no way on earth I was going to have luck finding just 上 if it did happen to be there.

Hey, look at that! I’m finally caught up!!

[helloorange]

It absolutely does, thank you for catching this. Will update.