くらい ①About, Approximately

くらい and ぐらい may be used 100% interchangeably, but ぐらい is far more common in speech

Structure

Number/counter + くらい or ぐらい

Details

Part of Speech
Particle
Word Type
Adverbial Particle
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Standard

About くらい ①

くらい or ぐらい (more common in spoken language) has several different uses in Japanese, but is often translated as 'about', or 'approximately'. It comes from the kanji 位(くらい), which literally means a 'rank', or 'grade' of something. This use of くらい comes after numbers, or counter words.

As can be seen in the last example, くらい may also be used after question words such as どの, when asking about the extent (grade) of something.

Due to the original meaning of くらい being 'rank', or 'extent', it may not be used when referring to broad periods of time. ころ will be used in these situations. However, くらい and ころ may be used interchangeably when referring to a specific time (due to a specific time being able to be thought of as an extent).

Caution

Please see the ころ grammar point if you would like to compare these two structures further.

Synonyms

Examples

--:--

何時(なんじ)ぐらいに来(き)ますか。

Approximately when will you come?

あと３０(さんじゅっ)分(ぷん)ぐらいで行(い)きます。

I will go/leave in approximately 30 minutes.

毎週(まいしゅう)コーヒーはどのくらい飲(の)む？

Approximately how much coffee do you drink per week?

彼(かれ)は１０(じゅっ)歳(さい)くらいだろう。

He's about 10 years old.

一週間(いっしゅうかん)に、五(ご)時間(じかん)ぐらいスポーツをする。

I play sports for about five hours in one week.

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Online
- The Particles ほど & くらい
  Imabi
- 位 = くらい・ぐらい
  Maggie Sensei

Offline
- [DBJG] A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar
  Page 212
- Genki I 2nd Edition
  Page 112
- みんなの日本語 I
  Page 74 [CH 11]
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くらい ① – Grammar Discussion

Most Recent Replies (14 in total)

nekoyama
Without the で, the …ぐらい works like an adverbial phrase that modifies いい: “It’s about that good”.
BobFraser
I’m a little confused as to why for the following english sentence, ぐらい is preferred to ごろ:
“Approximately when will you come?” => “何時ぐらいに来ますか”

This example came up while doing a lesson quiz and I thought that in this case, ごろ would be more appropriate, especially because of the following grammar point from the lesson, but to my surprise the app was expecting ぐらい:

[くらい・ぐらい is more often used to describe amounts, while ころ・ごろ is almost always exclusively used to highlight a point in time]
Dasutin
To follow up on the question asked by alexpwns, why is で used after くらい in these examples?

後３分くらいで着く。
どのくらいで着きますか?
あと３０分ぐらいで行きます。