theBryan wrote:
I apologized if this has already been discussed elsewhere, I searched for it to no avail. I was wondering if there's any difference in nuance between ~にくい ~づらい ~がたい. Like for example
Hard to hear.
聞きづらい
聞きにくい
聞きがたい
I know they all mean hard to do something but I am wondering what nuances exist like づらい seems more physical like maybe actually painful whereas にくい seems like its more general. がたい I don't see as much it seems but that doesn't mean much, I know it's in set words like ありがたい . I know the root word かたい means hard so that seems to literal mean "hard to do..."
よろしくお願いします。
Oh, I totally forgot about the question I promised to answer in another thread:
chochajin wrote:
このカーテンは_______生地を使っています。
a) 燃えにくい b) 燃えがたい c) 燃えやすい d) 燃えがちな
Why can't it be b)? Why is it a)? Because one can't think that there's a curtain made of something that's impossible to burn? Is that why?
にくい vs. づらい vs. がたい is a really tough question, and it seems the usages and nuances are gradually changing now. So don't think my explanation can teach everything about it. After all, if you want to fully understand a grammar point, you should learn it through exposure.
So, as you said, all the three words にくい, づらい, and がたい sort of mean "hard to do." The first two are often interchangeable if you ignore the slight difference in nuance while がたい has a distinctive meaning so it's kind of rare that you can replace がたい with にくい or づらい.
Grammatically speaking, the biggest difference is that にくい can be used for both volitional and non-volitional verbs while the other two are almost always attached to volitional verbs. Volitional verbs refer to actions you have a control over or you do on your own will. What kind of action Japanese culture and its language see as "you do it on your own" has absolutely nothing to do with equivalent verbs/actions found in bilingual dictionaries between Japanese and your mother tongue (i.e., just because your dictionary gives a translation that sounds like an action you have a control over doesn't mean the original Japanese word should work as a volitional verb), so this doesn't help much to form your own sentence. But I guess it can give you a rough idea and can help a bit to understand the nuance.
Some native speakers of standard Japanese do use づらい for non-volitional verbs and make a distinction between non-volitional verb+にくい and non-volitional verb+づらい. This is a recent phenomenon but is getting popular. Some dialects accept the non-volitional use too. But traditional grammar dictates that you don't use づらい for non-volitional verbs.
Anyway, the point is that にくい is the only one that you can safely attach to non-volitional verbs. Actually this is the grammatical reason why b) is wrong in chochajin's question; 燃える is non-volitional so がたい can't be used.
When にくい is used with a volitional verb, it adds the sense that it's not easy to do/complete the action. It often means that the situation the sentence is referring to isn't normal or that the action you're talking about now is more difficult than the same kind of action in another normal situation. For example, この靴は歩きにくい means that there is something wrong with the shoes (or they don't fit your feet well etc.) so it's not comfortable to walk. In general, you want the action/situation to be easy or comfortable (i.e., you don't like the "hard to do" situation), so this usage often carries a negative connotation. Also, it often sounds like the speaker's opinion.
Non-volitional verb+にくい means a different kind of "hard to do." I guess the meaning of this kind of にくい is similar to words such as "tolerant," "durable," "resilient," "invulnerable," "strong," "(almost) immune," and "rare (as in 'rare = hard to be found')," though none of them is quite right. I think you can see they're all "hard to X" in a way similar to "rare = hard to be found" but are different from "hard" as in "hard to walk" in a sense. For example, if you eat well and sleep well, you won't catch a cold easily. 風邪をひきにくい means this "you don't catch a cold." Another example is 変色しにくい. A special chemical substance can be used to prevent discoloration, and this kind of "the color is hard to be changed" is the meaning of 変色しにくい. I think you can see a similarity in 燃えにくい in chochajin's question. This kind of にくい can be either positive or negative. It can be neutral too.
づらい does give the sense of 辛い. It can be either physical, psychological or both. A thing that gives you physical pain isn't easy to do. If something makes you hesitate for a psychological reason, you'd find it hard to do too. So the meanings of volitional verb+にくい/づらい overlap. But when you use づらい, you're looking at the hardness while にくい means that you're describing the whole situation where something is hard to do. The difference is subtle, but づらい focuses more on annoyance, pain, etc. than にくい.
The difference is clearer when づらい is used for non-volitional verbs. Traditional grammar doesn't allow this, but it's not uncommon that native speakers say, "見えづらい" instead of "見えにくい." 見える here means "I can see the object." When something is difficult to see because of fog, you say 見えにくい. But if you're annoyed by that and want to emphasize the feeling, 見えづらい can work better.
がたい is also "hard to do," but it's a whole different kind of "hard to do" (though English speakers might not think it's different). Here are example translations:
"Unbearable 耐え難い (たえがたい),"
"hard evidence 動かしがたい証拠 (うごかじがたいしょうこ)," and
"(You just saw a surprising/shocking/amazing thing happen and say) I don't believe this 信じがたい (しんじがたい)."
As you can see, it's more like "can't do" than "hard to do" in a sense. Also, がたい implies that it's something you (or others) want to do but can't. So, for example, when you can't shake a feeling, what's in your mind is 拭いがたい感情 (ぬぐいがたいかんじょう).
がたい is much rarer and often used in an idiomatic phrase, so it might not be very helpful to compare it with the other two.
Last edited by magamo (2010 March 25, 5:52 am)
