This one (near me)
that one (near you)
That one over there (not near me and Not near you)
Which one?
I Just don’t understand when to use This much and when to use that much. Even in english I don’t understand when to use which one. English is not my native language.
The sentences still follow the same pattern. The bread is with the listener (as they bought it) therefore そ. The money and the sushi are with the speaker therefore こ. The fish is with neither (or at least we don’t know) therefore あ.
And yes, this pattern does not exist in German therefore you need to study it explicitly (just like me)
I’ll go through them and highlight the differences in how I would interpret it
Grammatically either こんなに or そんなに work fine and wouldn’t be weird
If it were そんなに I am imagining situations like the other person is talking about how much bread they bought or has it visible to us (the speaker).
If it were こんなに I would envision us finding a large amount of bread and showing it to the person who bought it when we said this. In this case we are either holding it or close to it. It could also be the case that they like showed it to us but then we approached them to inspect the bread and then inquire. Regardless the bread would be near.
Again both are grammatical
For そんなに I am imagining something like the person we are talking to has just proposed buying something expensive and told us about the price
For こんなに, we have found or are looking at the price ourselves because we saw it on a price tag or something.
こんなに is also something you could see in a sentence like this pretty often
If it were こんなに, I would imagine the speaker either holding or being right near the fish they are referencing. It could also be something near to them in the sense that they found a picture on social media or something on their computer.
As it is as あんなに I am imagining us talking about someone who just fished up a fish some distance away from us. If it were past tense I would also possibly imagine あんなに referring to something that happened in the not immediate past, like recalling a memory.
Technically そんなに and こんなに could work here
As is (using こんなに）i am imagining either the person at a table with a bunch of sushi on it that they are supposed to eat expressing some sort of doubt about whether or not they could eat it because they never have before OR someone who is in the process of or just finished with eating a higher amount of sushi than they ever have.
if it were そんなに I would imagine the person I’m with telling me about a sushi eating challenge and how they think I could do it or how they have memory of me eating a lot of sushi and I’m telling them that the quantity they are talking about is not a quantity that I have ever eaten.
そんなに is also something you will frequently see in this sort of situation. You could also use こんなに for like specific niche situations but ill save it.
For どんなに its literally just asking about to what extent the test is hard
If it were そんなに I would expect the person we are talking to just told us about how hard the test is or something that would suggest it is. For example, they mention they have studied a frick ton but still aren’t sure they can pass. We interpret what they said as meaning the test is hard.
The translations use “much”, but it actually isn’t about amounts at all, but about a way/maner. It’s more “in such a way like this”,
Yes, in a lot of cases, “in such a way" references some amount seen as a threshold.
But those words are not numeric/comparative in nature. Just like この、その、… they reference something, which is not a noun (otherwise ～の、~れ versions would be used) but something like an adjective/adverb. While これ is a pronoun that replaces a noun, こんな is a “pronoun that replaces an adjective” (I’m not sure such a thing exists in English or German)
? Not sure I agree with the wording here. ”It’s not about amounts at all”? Its like…primarily about amounts, no? The exact breakdown I gave above
こんなに→これ*ほど*
highlights that pretty well. The 3 of the 5 example sentences are also basically literal quantities with the other two being more abstract amounts maybe.
This is more like こう、そう、ああ or maybe こんな、そんな、あんな. “in such a way like this” maps to こう pretty cleanly. “as much as this” or “an amount as much as this” even would be こんなに
I interpret こんなに, etc as specifically referencing some sort of ‘extreme’ limit. You are talking about something big/small/far/close/high/low/etc, and are using a pronoun like structure “this/that” to reference an example of this limit.
I think the choice of using the こ, そ, or あ variant of any of these structures is often up to interpretation if the thing you are talking about is not currently being held by either the speaker or the person being spoken to.
