+- kanji koohii FORUM (http://forum.koohii.com)
+-- Forum: Learning Japanese (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The Japanese language (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-10.html)
+--- Thread: I'm usually confused about usually (/thread-9625.html)
I'm usually confused about usually - Zarxrax - 2012-06-17
Something that has often frustrated me in Japanese, is when I want to say that something is "usually" the case. For whatever reason, this is something that I have had a lot of difficulty picking up.
I use the phrase "usually" ALL THE TIME in English, but then when I switch to Japanese, I have no idea how to properly express myself sometimes.
Part of the problem is that Japan seems to have many different words that express this concept.
通常
普通
普段
大抵
いつも (though I understand how this one has different connotations)
- and several others!!
What is the difference between all of these? Are their subtle differences? Are most of them fairly interchangeable?
What about a few example sentences?
How would these translate?
I usually eat chicken for dinner.
She's usually right.
"What are you doing tonight?" "Oh, the usual."
My usual routine is to go jogging before lunch.
He usually goes straight home after work.
That store is usually closed on weekends.
And I wonder if anyone else has had trouble with this, or if its just me?
I'm usually confused about usually - JimmySeal - 2012-06-18
I don't have a clear answer for you, but going by my gut, I feel that listing these words by their order of frequency of expressing "usually" in speech, you'd get the following:
普段
いつも
通常
大抵
普通
As I think you you know, いつも has more of a connotation of "all the time" than "most of the time." 通常 seems to be more formal and used in written form rather than spoken form. 大抵/大体 doesn't really express frequency timewise, but has a meaning like "for the most part." And 普通 has more of a meaning of "normal" than "usually."
Here's how I would translate your examples, but take them with a grain of salt:
She's usually right.
彼女が言うことが大体あってる。
[Most of what she says is right.]
"What are you doing tonight?" "Oh, the usual."
今夜何してる？ まあ、いつもの。
My usual routine is to go jogging before lunch.
私は普段昼ご飯の前にジョギングにいってる。
He usually goes straight home after work.
彼は[普段/いつも]仕事から直接家に帰る。
That store is usually closed on weekends.
あの店は大体週末が休みだ。
[That store's closed most weekends.]
I'm usually confused about usually - Zarxrax - 2012-06-18
Oh wow, maybe I was worse off than I thought!
It's my first time hearing about 大体. Is this fairly interchangeable with 大抵？
and I had mostly been trying to use 普通 to express "usually" in my writing. I had seen this used in a few sentences before, but I guess I misunderstood how its typically used.
This is really helpful, though I am still a bit confused on when I would use 普段 vs 大体.
You mentioned time frequency, which something I hadn't thought about before. However, on that last example sentence, you chose to use 大体 even though we are talking about frequency in that case...
I'm usually confused about usually - Purrlsta - 2012-06-18
I'm also quite interested in the differences between 大抵 and 大体. I learnt 大抵 first and so used it frequently, but when talking to people in Japan, if I asked them a question that used 大抵 their answer would almost always use 大体 instead.
One of my Japanese friends also commented on how despite my vocabulary being pretty small I knew words like "大抵".
So please, what's the difference in nuance between them?
I'm usually confused about usually - Tori-kun - 2012-06-18
大体＝大抵, as it seems from the given definition (Meikyo)
だい‐たい【大体】__副__
①名__全部ではないが､大部分｡おおよそ｡たいてい｡あらまし｡｢─の出席者が賛成する｣｢説明は─わかった｣
②ほぼその数量であるさま｡おおよそ｡｢通勤には─一時間かかる｣
③もとはと言えば｡そもそも｡｢─お前が悪いんだ｣
I'm usually confused about usually - Tori-kun - 2012-06-18
Zarxrax Wrote:However, on that last example sentence, you chose to use 大体 even though we are talking about frequency in that case...I guess you can explain that use here with the example sentence JimmySeal gave for 大体 before: 彼女が言うことが大体あってる。
So, another translation for the あの店は大体週末が休みだ。 sentence might be: "For the most parts/time the shop is closed on weekends." or "For most times [what applies is that] on weekends the shop is closed."
That's how I would understand the usage here...
I'm usually confused about usually - JimmySeal - 2012-06-18
I've been learning Japanese mostly organically for the last 5 years (e.g. mostly without dictionaries or grammar guides), so I'm not well suited for explaining these kinds of things, but...
In my experience 大体 and 大抵 have about the same meaning, but I feel that I don't encounter 大抵 all that much. 大抵 might be another one of those words that occurs more in formal or written language.
Quote:However, on that last example sentence, you chose to use 大体 even though we are talking about frequency in that case...Well, in my understanding 大体 expresses a majority proportion-wise, rather than time frequency-wise, so あの店は大体週末が休みだ。 says that the store is closed the majority of (that is, most) weekends. Since "weekend" is an expression of time, it's indirectly saying something about temporal frequency. Does that make any sense?
I'm usually confused about usually - Zarxrax - 2012-06-18
Cool, I think I get it now. I'll just need to start using them and see how it goes.