I wonder if there is a reason why in the grammar construction "ば~ほど", the verb or adjective is repeated two times, like:

パーティーは人が多ければ多いほど楽しい。

There is an explanation translatable in english terms or it is one of those things you must accept as it is?

Literally, it's some thing like "if you x, to the extent you x, then Y"

So, your example would be literally something along the lines of, "As far as parties go, If the people are numerous, to the extent that they are numerous, it is fun." However, that expression is unnecessarily wordy in English so it gets translated to "the more you x, y."

RandomQuotes Wrote:Literally, it's some thing like "if you x, to the extent you x, then Y"

So, your example would be literally something along the lines of, "As far as parties go, If the people are numerous, to the extent that they are numerous, it is fun." However, that expression is unnecessarily wordy in English so it gets translated to "the more you x, y."

This is exactly what I needed to understand better this construction. Thank you very much RandomQuotes

Does the expression without "多ければ" (パーティーは人が多いほど楽しい。) make any sense?
Is it grammatically incorrect/awkward/unnatural?

According to the dictionary of Intermediate grammar, these 3 sentences are equivalent in meaning.
私は難しい仕事ほどやる気が出る。
私は仕事が難しいほどやる気が出る。
私は難しい仕事であればあるほどやる気が出る。

Some more examples from that grammar book:
元気な人ほど無理をしがちだ。
Stronger people tend to strain themselves more.
あまり働かない者ほど不平が多い。
Lazier people complain more.
私は静かなほど落ち着かない。
The quieter it is, the more uneasy I feel.

However, this sentence puzzles me. Here we have 耳障りな + ほど (na-adj + ほど) but it doesn't seem to follow the "the more/less ~, the more less ~" pattern. Is this inconsistent with the above or am I missing something.
昼過ぎに登城すると、城内の様子が変わっていた。
いつもなら靴音すら耳障りなほど静かな城内を、沢山の衛兵たちが慌ただしく動き回っている。
I interpret this as: A large crowd of soldiers is bustling around in the castle's interior, which is usually so quiet that even footsteps sound jarring.

They're really the same thing. The English thought in the first examples is "the more/less ~, the more/less ~" but the Japanese is different.

In the first sentences it's something like "I'm motivated to the extent that the job is difficult."
And in the last example it's exactly as you interpreted it. "It's usually quiet to the extent that even the sound of footsteps is jarring.

Thanks for the reply. I have some questions that will hopefully clear things up some more for me.

Can I rearrange 「パーティーは人が多いほど楽しい。」 to this phrase?
人が多いほど楽しいパーティー (just so that it's more similar to the castle example)
The party which is more fun the more people there are.
Why can't this be interpreted similarly to the castle example: The party which was fun to the point that a lot of people attended it.

What confuses me is that in 「パーティーは人が多いほど楽しい。」, ほど says that the extent of 楽しい is proportional to the extent of 多い. Various sources agree with this use so I'm okay with this.

But in the castle example,　ほど isn't making 静か proportional to 耳障り. Here, it just says that extent of 静か is to the point that the sound of footsteps is jarring.

So with [adjective 1] ... ほど ... [adjective 2], how do I distinguish whether ほど is saying that:
- the extent of [adj2] proportional to the extent of [adj1]
- the extent of [adj2] is such that [Noun is adj1]

I think it's just context -- 靴音すら耳障り isn't something that has degrees, so it can't have a proportional meaning (the whole phrase is modifying ほど, not just 耳障り.)

Yeah, it probably does depend on the phrase preceding ほど. I'll need to keep an eye out on this pattern as I come across it while reading to get more comfortable with it. Thanks guys.

quanticism Wrote:But in the castle example,　ほど isn't making 静か proportional to 耳障り. Here, it just says that extent of 静か is to the point that the sound of footsteps is jarring.

I think I would say "It's so quiet to the extent that the sound of footsteps is jarring" Or perhaps to match the Japanese word order a bit more, you can yoda-fy it: "to the extent that footsteps are jarring, it's so quiet"

So 'ほど' is making the shizuka proportional to the mimizawari, the more shizuka it is, the more mimizawari any sound becomes.

Drdunlap, I know you're all Japanese perapera and all but I think it comes out better in English to translate the 私は難しい仕事ほどやる気が出る example as "the job is difficult to the extant that it motivates me/ brings out my motivation"
As in, I am a person who is more motivated when things get tricky.

ktcgx Wrote:

quanticism Wrote:But in the castle example,　ほど isn't making 静か proportional to 耳障り. Here, it just says that extent of 静か is to the point that the sound of footsteps is jarring.

I think I would say "It's so quiet to the extent that the sound of footsteps is jarring" Or perhaps to match the Japanese word order a bit more, you can yoda-fy it: "to the extent that footsteps are jarring, it's so quiet"

So 'ほど' is making the shizuka proportional to the mimizawari, the more shizuka it is, the more mimizawari any sound becomes.

It's "To the extent that even (すら) footsteps are annoying to hear, it's quiet" -- no proportional meaning.

ktcgx Wrote:Drdunlap, I know you're all Japanese perapera and all but I think it comes out better in English to translate the 私は難しい仕事ほどやる気が出る example as "the job is difficult to the extant that it motivates me/ brings out my motivation"
As in, I am a person who is more motivated when things get tricky.

英語って何それ？
美味しいの？食べれんのー！？

yudantaiteki Wrote:

ktcgx Wrote:

quanticism Wrote:But in the castle example,　ほど isn't making 静か proportional to 耳障り. Here, it just says that extent of 静か is to the point that the sound of footsteps is jarring.

I think I would say "It's so quiet to the extent that the sound of footsteps is jarring" Or perhaps to match the Japanese word order a bit more, you can yoda-fy it: "to the extent that footsteps are jarring, it's so quiet"

So 'ほど' is making the shizuka proportional to the mimizawari, the more shizuka it is, the more mimizawari any sound becomes.

It's "To the extent that even (すら) footsteps are annoying to hear, it's quiet" -- no proportional meaning.

I'm not sure how you see "To the extent that even (すら) footsteps are annoying to hear, it's quiet" as not having a proportional meaning.

"To the extent that" as in "To such an extent that". It's so quiet that even footsteps are annoying to hear. It could be only barely that quiet. It could be the quietest place on Earth, at -9.4dB. Or anywhere in between. The exact level of quietness does not necessarily vary with the exact noise level of the specific footsteps being referred to (if there even are any specific footsteps).

ktcgx Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:

ktcgx Wrote:I think I would say "It's so quiet to the extent that the sound of footsteps is jarring" Or perhaps to match the Japanese word order a bit more, you can yoda-fy it: "to the extent that footsteps are jarring, it's so quiet"

So 'ほど' is making the shizuka proportional to the mimizawari, the more shizuka it is, the more mimizawari any sound becomes.

It's "To the extent that even (すら) footsteps are annoying to hear, it's quiet" -- no proportional meaning.

I'm not sure how you see "To the extent that even (すら) footsteps are annoying to hear, it's quiet" as not having a proportional meaning.

It's saying that it's quiet, and describing how quiet it is. This isn't a meaning of "the more quiet it is, the more [something]".

I guess to me, it reads like "It's quiet to the extent that even footsteps sound disproportionately loud"

Your translations of the sentence is fine, but ほど there doesn't have a meaning of "the quieter it is, the louder the footsteps are." It just expresses the degree of quietness in this situation.

To me I guess, in any situation, it always seems like the quieter a place is, the louder any noise seems. So for me, it's certainly proportional to the quietness of the place.

ktcgx Wrote:To me I guess, in any situation, it always seems like the quieter a place is, the louder any noise seems.

That's true, but it has nothing to do with what the sentence means. I'm a little confused about exactly what you're saying at this point.

ktcgx Wrote:So 'ほど' is making the shizuka proportional to the mimizawari, the more shizuka it is, the more mimizawari any sound becomes.

Wouldn't you need to change the order of 静か and 耳障り to express this? i.e:
部屋が静かなほど足音が耳障りだ。 The quieter the room, the more jarring the footsteps.
as opposed to:
足音が耳障りなほど部屋が静かだ。The more jarring the footsteps, the quieter the room But this sounds kind of awkward because the cause (the room being quiet) and effect (footsteps sound loud) are kind of reversed here.

靴音すら耳障りなほど城内が静かだ。I can't really think of a way to make すら fit into "the more 耳障り, the more 静か"pattern. So I suppose you're forced into the interpretation of: "...quiet to the point that even footsteps sound jarring".

Yuda, you were saying that hodo doesn't mean proportional in this sentence, I'm saying it does.

Quan, perhaps then it's better to translate it as 'the more jarring the footsteps sound, the quieter the room must be [for them to jar you so much]'

ktcgx Wrote:Quan, perhaps then it's better to translate it as 'the more jarring the footsteps sound, the quieter the room must be [for them to jar you so much]'

Are you suggesting this as a translation for 靴音すら耳障りなほど城内が静かだ。? That's not what it means. It means "The room is so quiet that even footsteps sound jarring/annoying/etc."

To give a similar sentence in English. "There was so much food I couldn't finish it." As you can see here, the meaning isn't propotional. Adding more food doesn't make me less able to finish it, I just can't.　

食事が多いほど食べきれない
The grammar here is the same.

RandomQuotes Wrote:To give a similar sentence in English. "There was so much food I couldn't finish it." As you can see here, the meaning isn't propotional. Adding more food doesn't make me less able to finish it, I just can't.　

食事が多いほど食べきれない
The grammar here is the same.

Isn't that reversed? "There was so much food I couldn't finish it" is 食べきれないほど食事が多かった (sticking to the same words you used).

Here are some more examples of 食べきれないほど from google, none of which are proportional:
三陸の新鮮な海の幸が食べきれないほどです。
食べきれないほどの皿数とボリューム！ 後で蕎麦も来ます。
一人では食べきれないほどのタワーバーガーをはじめ、ハンバーガーの種類が豊富♪
一人暮らしの方や料理好きで食べきれないほど食材を購入してしまう方などは、賞味期限内に消費出来ずに食べ物を捨ててしまうこともあるでしょう。
記者2人でほとんどの回に参加し、目標通り、食べきれないほどの野菜を収穫した。

yudantaiteki Wrote:

RandomQuotes Wrote:To give a similar sentence in English. "There was so much food I couldn't finish it." As you can see here, the meaning isn't propotional. Adding more food doesn't make me less able to finish it, I just can't.　

食事が多いほど食べきれない
The grammar here is the same.

Isn't that reversed? "There was so much food I couldn't finish it" is 食べきれないほど食事が多かった (sticking to the same words you used).

Probably, I just woke up, and went with the first thing that came to my mind as being non propotional.