Difference between 成長する and 伸ばす

Japanese Language Resources
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Can anyone explain what the difference between 成長する and 伸ばす is?

On another forum someone said one just means the height the other the heart?

In the N3 単語 2000 book both feature examples of someone physically growing/getting older. So are both simply exchangeable with the other or do they have different connotations?

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成長する is about growing and developing. 伸ばす is mostly about getting longer, stretching and straightening out. Sometimes the latter will translate into “grow” in English, e.g. when talking about hair.

I recommend looking words up in the dictionary.goo.ne.jp interface to help with this kind of question. This gives you:

  • J-J definitions (from the Daijisen dictionary). I’m not personally in the “you should use a JJ dictionary all the time” camp, but I do think it can be helpful to look at how a Japanese person tried to define the meaning if you’re not sure about the difference between two words or if a JE dictionary has multiple definitions and you’re wondering if there’s some underlying single concept behind them all.
  • Lookups in the Progressive J-E dictionary, which includes clarifying examples.

For these two words, the Progressive entries are helpful I think:

伸ばす has examples about hair growing, stretching your arm out to reach a switch, and standing up straight. There’s also a more metaphorical sense where the idea of extension generalises to 程度を高める.

成長する has examples about children growing up, mental development and economic growth.

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Thanks a lot for the explanation.

That dictionary seems very helpful having English example usages for the Japanese word. Do you know how it works? Is it community powered, translated by professionals or machine translated?

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Progressive is a commercial dictionary from the publisher 小学館. (The target audience is mostly Japanese people learning English.)

The goo.ne.jp site more generally aggregates results from various dictionaries (I think all commercial ones).

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A rule of thumb is that kunyomi words tend to be more casual/general/mundane while onyomi jukugo words are often more technical/precise/formal.

I don’t know if it’s really useful to understand this particular pair but it’s a good thing to keep in mind generally.

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Mmm, for instance if you want the equivalent of the stereotypical “my, how you’ve grown” remark from relatives about/to children I think that would be something with 大きくなった rather than 成長.

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I think I’ve mostly encountered 成長 to mean developmental growth as a sort of systematic process (that’s usually not easily reversible), but that’s pretty much what you’ve already mentioned in your first comment.

“Developmental growth” might be the best way to sum it up.

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I just stumbled upon 成長 in the manga I’m reading:

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While you’re asleep, they’re making outstanding progress/growth.

He’s talking about wizards-in-training, here 成長 refers to the development of their magical abilities. 伸ばす wouldn’t make any sense here I think.

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Oh that’s so interesting thank you :pray:

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