人のグチを聞くことほど面倒臭いことは無い
How is the above sentence translated as: “There’s nothing more annoying than listening to people complain”? I’m guessing it has something to do with ほど and ことは無い?
Edit: My focus is on the “nothing more” part. My understanding of ほど is that it is bound limit or extent to which something is (usually a HIGHER amount of something.) I think ことはない means there is no need of something?
It isn’t just “ことはない” here but “面倒臭いことはない” (“面倒臭い” is an adjective describing “こと,” so you’ve gotta take them together). I suppose a closer translation would be “There is nothing so annoying as listening to people complain.” If there’s nothing at the level of listening to people complain, it follows that there’s nothing above that level, either. Like, that is the ceiling.
I think it’s just that we have that set phrase in English. “There’s not a thing that is annoying to the extent of listening to people’s complaints” is probably my best word for word translation and that’s just, not very good English. It’s a closer translation, but we just need to put that more in to make it sound right. Most translations aren’t looking to translate things word for word.
If the last word was いらない then it would ne “no need” but ことはない means there is nothing that exists aka something kinda imposible or unimaginable by the speaker.
While this grammar point may be used for expressing that an extent has not been reached, it is also frequently used for making comparisons between two things. In these cases, it states that ‘the example/limit of (A) is something that cannot be reached/repeated by (B)’. This is similar to ‘(B) is not as ~ as (A)’ in English.
I’m going to attempt to break down this specific sentence for you, and hopefully it helps rather than makes things worse lol
・人のグチ ＝ A person’s/People’s complaints
・〇〇を聞くこと ＝ Listen(ing) to 〇〇
・(名詞)程(形容詞・形容動詞) ＝ as [i/na-adjective] as (noun)
eg- 太陽 程 熱い＝ as hot as the sun
・面倒臭いこと ＝ annoying, problematic, troublesome, etc. “thing”
・〇〇はない ＝ there is no 〇〇
Now, 面倒臭い is what’s attaching to 程, and こと to 聞く, so there’s a bit of overlap. If we take it one step further and combine some of the above components:
・人のグチを聞くこと… ＝ …listening to people’s complaints.
・…程面倒臭いことはない ＝ There’s nothing as (more) annoying as…
Normally, 程 would be as I originally laid out with the “as … as …”, but once we translate it to English there’s very little difference in nuance between “nothing more … than …” and “nothing as … as …”. If there’s nothing as good as a snow day off from school, there’s certainly also nothing better, either.
程 marks what comes before it as the target of comparison to whatever descriptor comes after, and is also frequently used metaphorically.
eg- 死ぬほど恥ずかしい ＝ “So embarrassed I could die”
Verb + ことはない is a grammar point that basically translates to “There is no need to [verb]”
They were probably thinking of that.