買い物に行くのに一番良い時間はいつですか？
国を訪れるのに最も良い時期はいつですか？
訪れるのに最も良い都市はどこですか？
のに has two main uses! It’s usually used like ‘despite’ or ‘even though’ (よく寝たのに、まだ眠いですよ/Even though I slept well, I’m still sleepy.), which people usually learn first. Then, we have this next usage!
This one operates a little more like ‘in order to’ (at least according to bunpro).
So, 「買い物に行くのに一番良い時間はいつですか？」would be something like:
’What’s the best time for you to go shopping?’
(lit. ‘In order to go shopping, what’s the best time?’)
「国を訪れるのに最も良い時期はいつですか？」
When is the best season to visit this country?
(lit. ‘In order to visit this country, what is the best time period?’)
「訪れるのに最も良い都市はどこですか？」
What city is the best to visit?
(lit. ‘In order to visit, what city is the best?’)
Here’s a link to the bunpro website, which you can use even if you don’t subscribe!
I highly recommend using it to look up grammar points. Hopefully this helped!
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Do you understand 健康にいい食べ物？
If so you would be familiar with the idea of this usage of に. It’s just being used with a verb here so there is a の here nominalizing the verb.
Good food for health
Good time for going shopping.
We do the same thing in English, as you can see.
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Thanks, I guess I need a serious review of my N3 grammar because I forgot this usage. Thanks so much.
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I found that very confusing for a long time because these two uses seem almost contradictory since one seems to put the two clauses in opposition (A even though B) while the other unites them (A in order to B). Why use the same construction?!
The way I see it now is that the root concept is something more like “A considering B”. The のに clause “frames” what follows. This often yields clunky translations in English but I feel like it conveys the underlying idea:
“Considering the act of going shopping, when is the best time?”
“Considering I slept well, I’m still sleepy”
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I don’t think that site is doing a great job of actually showing what’s going on.
のに as “despite” is it’s own construction.
食べたいのに
綺麗なのに
The のに exists regardless because it’s it’s own thing.
But take a look at their sentences and you should see some red flags.
食べるのに時間がかかる…?
What if I just rewrite it as 食事に時間がかかる
Well wait a minute, now the の is gone. It was never there for a specific construction, it was just there to nominalize a verb.
OK so maybe the に is what’s special? But wait, this is literally just a regular usage of に.
Take the other example too
宿題をするのに時間がかかる
I could just say 宿題に時間がかかる first of all, then I could also do something like
宿題に解けない問題がある
And now “in order to” really doesnt work.
I mean take a look at sentences like this
In order to visit, what city is the best?
It’s clearly a flawed interpretation. It doesn’t even make sense in English if you think about it, let alone sounding unnatural. Depending on the situation に can be translated as to (and maybe stretching it to “in order to”). And depending on the situation you will nominalize a verb that comes before it by adding a の. But treating it as it’s own thing seems like a simplification some learners thought would be easier along the way, as opposed to an accurate way of thinking about the construction.
Idk, I don’t know shit about the nitty gritty of grammar so maybe I’m being dumb though.
This is far less natural though than “for” like I suggested, though
And this doesn’t accurately convey the meaning. It is more appropriate for 割に rather than のに. They have similar meanings, but distinct nuance.
Again I think way too much effort is being put in to simplify something that shouldn’t be simplified
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Absolutely, I concede that, my point was to try and convert the underlying concept carried by the に in both cases, as a way to frame one thing relative to another. Amusingly it would work better in French where “for” is “pour” and “even though” is “pourtant” (compound of “pour”) showing that there is a shared underlying concept there too. You can even just use “pour” without the “tant” in some cases/styles.
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I guess I can’t deny that there might be some underlying connection that my English-Japanese bilingual brain just can’t see. I do think for the average English monolingual, のに (despite) getting a special place in their mind is most helpful.
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Yeah I think both approaches will work for different people. Eventually you supposed to just get a feel for it anyway and stop caring about translations…
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