Structure
Verb[て]+ こそ
Details
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Standard
使用域
一般
About ~てこそ
- 海外に留学してこそ、日本食の美味しさが分かる。Only by studying abroad can one appreciate the deliciousness of Japanese food.
- 親になってこそ、子育ての大変さがわかる。It's only when you become a parent that you understand how hard it is to raise a child.
- チーム全員の責任を背負ってこそ、キャプテンになれる。You become a captain only if you take on the responsibility of the whole team.
- 他のチームに勝ってこそ、世界一になれる。Only by beating other teams can we become the best in the world.
Synonyms
Examples
日本へ行ってこそ、京都の魅力が分かる。
Only by going to Japan, one can understand the charm of Kyoto.
親になってこそ、子供は奇跡だという考え方が分かる。
Only by becoming a parent, you can understand the mindset that children are miracles.
優勝してこそ、自信に繋がる。
It is only by winning that one becomes confident.
全部揃えてこそのコレクションだ。
It is a collection only by being complete.
全員参加してこその遠足だ。
It is only because everyone is participating that it is an outing.
It isn't an outing until everyone participates.
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Breakdown and example sentences
JapaneseTest4You
Difference between てこそ and からこそ
Japanese StackExchange
接続・意味・使い方・例文
にほんごの里
Offline
A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar
133
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~てこそ – Grammar Discussion
Most Recent Replies (2 in total)
ljoekelsoey
About 2 years ago
Is this interchangeable with Verb + ことだけで ?
Fuga
About 1 year ago
Hey @ljoekelsoey !
This grammar point is not interchangeable with だけで. The ‘just by’ translation of てこそ has the nuance of ‘until…/unless…’, which だけで does not have.
Let’s look at this sentence for example:
親になってこそ、子供は奇跡だという考え方が分かる。The translation on the site is ’ Only by becoming a parent, you can understand the mindset that children are miracles.’, but the nuance this sentence carries is ’ Unless you become a parent first, you wont understand the mindset that children are miracles.’
When that てこそ is replaced with だけで, it will change the nuance to ‘Becoming a parent is the only thing necessary to understand that childre...
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