程(ほど)～ないIs not as…as, Isn't... like..., Not to the extent of...

Most Recent Replies (6 in total)

• 

  mrnoone

  English translation:
  is not as…as
  is not like…
  is no as…

  Structure:
  Noun + ほど + Verb[ ない ]
  Verb + ほど + Verb[ ない ]
  Noun + ほど + Adj[ ない ]

  Explanation:
  [Used to say that something is the best, or in comparison that something/someone is not as … as something/someone else]

  View on Bunpro

• 

  eefara

  I’m not quite sure I understand this example sentence:

  人に褒めてもらえるかどうかはそれ ほど 重要では ない 。
  ( It is not that important whether or not you can be praised by others.)

  I had originally read it as “There is nothing more important than whether you can be praised by others.”

  Could someone break down for me why it means what it does?

• 

  mrnoone

  Hey

  This is one of the best questions I have ever been asked.

  Basically, if you want to say that something is of the highest degree, the best (there is nothing as), you need:

  Aほど/くらい/ぐらいNoun + は + ない (for not living things)/いない (for living things)

  Both ない and いない come from ある and いる, which indicate the existence of something or someone - there is ○. Negative indicates lack of existence, “there is no ○, there is nothing ○”.

  On the other hand, 重要ではない means “something is not important”. The negation of the adjective.

  So:
  彼女ほど賢い人はいない。
  There is no as smart person as she is. -> No one is as smart as she.
  In this example, we deny the existence of a smarter person.

  vs

  ともこはなるせさんほど賢くない。
  Tomoko is not as smart as Naruse is.

  Therefore:

  1)人に|2)褒めてもらえる|3)かどうかは|4)それ ほど|5)重要では ない 。
  ...

• 

  eefara

  Thanks so much for the awesome answer! It all makes sense!

• 

  Daru

  地図形式が持つ歪みから、ロシアは世界地図上に描かれているほどほど大きくない。

  I understand how the grammar point of this sentence is being used here, but I’m having a hard time making sense of the “持つ歪みから” at the start .

  Probably working with incomplete information right now, but wouldn’t something like 「歪み持ちだから」read better/be more natural? Specially considering 歪み is a noun and would need だ for から.

  EDIT:
  So I dug a bit deeper.

  • My proposal isn’t actually more natural, the meaning changes to something like “it’s full of distortions”, rather than “it can have distortions”
  • から is being used not as a “because”, but “based on”

  すまん！ Leaving my confusion for everyone to see regardless.

• 

  Daru

  Who was the ding-dong that posted this? Oh wait, it was me before working in Bunpro.

• 

  wct

  I have a question (below), but first, an observation:

  So, the explanation section for this (and many others besides) have been updated, and it is soooo much more complete and instructive! I’m loving BunPro more and more every day! Thanks to everyone involved in these new explanations!

  Oh, and I guess one suggestion might be to somehow update these grammar-point-specific forum posts so that they reflect the new explanation sections? Currently, the OP has the old explanation which is much shorter and less complete. I think this is somewhat important, in the sense that if BP users are to discuss the grammar point, it doesn’t do much good if everyone reading the thread has to open up the grammar point in a separate tab and flip back and forth to reference the text of the explanation section.

  Perhaps this could be maintained in an automated way, such that some forum bot automatically updates the grammar point posts whenever the source-grammar-point is signif...