Structure
Verb + にもかかわらず
［い］Adjective + にもかかわらず
［な］Adjective + である + にもかかわらず
Noun + （である）+ にもかかわらず
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About にもかかわらず
にもかかわらず is a formal grammar structure in Japanese used to convey that something is 'in spite of (A)', or 'despite (A)'. This pattern is a combination of に, も, the う-Verb 拘わる 'to fixate on', or 'to stick to', and the literary auxiliary verb ず, which connects with verbs in the same way, and carries the same meaning as ない.
This structure is most frequently seen connected to verbs, い-Adjectives and nouns in their standard forms. In most cases, this pattern will appear without kanji.
Literally, this phrase can be thought of as expressing 'without being affected by (A), (B)', or 'without fixating on (A), (B)'. However, it is almost always used in exactly the same way as のに 'despite'.
Caution
It is important not to get にも拘わらず mixed up with に関わらず. The former expresses 'despite', while the latter tends to be used more often for 'no matter if'.
Synonyms
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Examples
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勘違いしたにもかかわらず、彼は一切謝らない。
Even though he made a mistake, he will never apologize.
あんなにかわいがったにもかかわらず、裏切られるなんて…
Despite showing them that much adoration, (who would have thought) that they would betray us...
間隔があいたにもかかわらず、相変わらずいいプレーをしますね。
Even though a space opened, they made a nice play, like usual.
乾燥しているにもかかわらず加湿しないから、喉をやられた。
Since I didn't run the humidifier regardless of it being dry, my voice got hoarse.
喉が渇いているにもかかわらず、飲み物を与えないのは虐待だ。
Despite me being thirsty, not giving me anything to drink is cruel.
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Additional information and examples
JapaneseTest4You
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A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar
Page 257
A Handbook of Japanese Grammar Patterns
Page 488
Quartet II
Page 13
Tobira (Gateway to Advanced Japanese)
page 218-3
完全マスター N2
Page 64-1
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にもかかわらず – Grammar Discussion
Most Recent Replies (6 in total)
okayfrog
I keep getting this mixed up with 割に. Like, there are example sentences where the bolded text will be “Despite” and it’ll say “Contrastive, Unexpected” and I’m not sure where to use 割に and where to use にもかかわらず and I’ve gotten the two of them mixed up more times than I can count over the past year.
It feels like this should be one of those cases where it doesn’t mark you wrong, but instead says something like “try a different grammar point” or whatever it says. But since it doesn’t say that, I must be missing something… ?
casual
If I look through example sentences for にもかかわらず, I think actually none of them can be replaced with わりに. And some examples in わりに can probably be replaced with にもかかわらず, but the meaning will become a little different.
I think of (X)わりに(Y) as “for someone/something that is X, this is surprisingly Y”.
And (X)にもかかわらず as “in spite of”.
Both can be translated as “despite”, but the meaning is different, isn’t it.Maybe looking through explanations of these constructions in another source/textbook could help to contrast them?
okayfrog
what’s throwing me off is that in the example sentences for both, they’re both asking for “despite” and they both say “Contrastive, Unexpected.” When I see those, I think either grammar point can work and it feels weird when one works and not the other. Just doesn’t make sense to me.
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