というくらいに a bit confused - two questions

[Schuylerca]

Been trying to understand this literally and part of my problem at least I think is the “to the extent” stuff just confuses the heck out of me. There are just too many variations in translations overall that it’s hard to grasp the general meaning. Anyhow, spent a lot of time on this already and have some various examples but hoping someone could explain this grammar a bit better.

2 questions about this (what should be a simple) sentence:

今日は、秋かというくらいに、涼しい

Stripping away the middle stuff
今日は、 涼しい = As for today cold (literal translation)

Pretty sure I’m going to feel super dumb when this is explained but meh…really want to understand this (middle stuff):
秋か + というくらいに

1st question

Is that か the question marker or something else? Because if it’s the question marker then could it be written as 秋だか and mean the same thing (Is it fall)??

Originally I thought, it was the no 6 jisho def:

but cannot find any actual grammar references for using か as a suffice to form adjectives…but would make sense to say “autum-ish” or “autumy” maybe?

Of course telling the idiot native english speaker it comes after an indeclinable word (like I have any clue what these fancy grammar words mean) - tried to look it up but just more confusing… heck if I know if 秋 is declinable or indeclinable beats me

Or is this a contracted かな かもしれません of some kind… where it has the “I wonder/might” feeling?

2nd Question

というくらいに
What the heck is this… really hate that there are so many という uses
A native speaker said it’s a set phrase (in itself but hasn’t gotten back to me with any other info yet).

The closest I could get was というところ which is here on bunpro but don’t know if exactly the same… the best I can do with this at the moment is this:

秋か = is it fall?
という＋くらいに to say + to the extent

Literally the whole thing: “As for today it is cold, to the extent i say it is it fall?”
When I run it through DeepL I get this: “It’s so cool today that it feels like autumn!”

Realize that’s a bit of a mess (and train of thought) but for whatever reason I’m a bit lost …This feels more likely to be a fixed expression, and with DeepL throwing the “feels like autumn” puts the か more as an suffix.

As I said above sure I’ll feel dumb but figured someone smarter than me is out there that can probably explain this clearly (fingers crossed)

[FredKore]

That’s a whole lot of train of thought there.
I’ll try to address some parts of that.

Big picture, overall, you might be trying too much to approach this like a word-for-word translation/deciphering, which is very difficult to do the further you go into Japanese. The best you can do is understand the concept that each grammar point is trying to convey, get an overall idea in your head, and then transfer that into natural English.

@Schuylerca

A native speaker said it’s a set phrase

Man, native speakers always say that. There’s very few native speakers who understand their own language (of any language) well enough to explain it grammatically.

秋かというくらいに
I’d say this is a combination of these items…
という | Japanese Grammar SRS
→ there’s many translations but I also see it as a “soft” introduction to an idea
～かというと ① | Japanese Grammar SRS
くらい ② | Japanese Grammar SRS
So I get this with a very literal translation:
“is it Fall?” || called || rough extent, modifying adj form

And then, 今日は、秋かというくらいに、涼しい , after a few steps to natural English translations, becomes:
→ As for today, to the extent that I’d call it “is it Fall?”, it’s cool.
→ Today is cool, to the extent that it’s Fall-ish.
→ Today’s cool, like it almost feels like Fall.

(Btw, I’m sure there’s other ways to interpret this sentence as well.)

[Schuylerca]

@FredKore

Big picture, overall, you might be trying too much to approach this like a word-for-word translation/deciphering, which is very difficult to do the further you go into Japanese.

I’m well aware … wasn’t trying to do a word for word per say… this was actually an easier example sentence vs the one I was actually trying to understand… so I used this sentence as figured it would be easier to explain. What I wanted to be able to do if I actually understand it is make up my own sentences with this grammar correctly…and to do that correctly…a “soft” understanding of the grammar isn’t good enough for me personally.

Your explanation is one that makes sense and I have come to several possible conclusions on my own, this being one of them…but it doesn’t address the question about か possibly being a suffix either (could be wrong but I’d imagine it would be it’s own grammar item) if it truly can be a suffix, and if that’s the case then there should be a grammar reference somewhere!!! but I can’t find one yet…

Just my opinion also but I don’t think the ～かというと is the right one here as that last と has more of a conditional feel (if because / why because) to me…I’d be more inclined to think that isn’t quite the right ‘soft’ idea for this point. I might be wrong, just a gut feeling that it doesn’t have the same feeling that the という+くらい does…

I’m still very suspicious that this form maybe an alternative form of というところ (would make a lot of sense) but haven’t found any resources yet to prove it.

An interesting thing when I was playing around with the grammar and DeepL (non scientific) but 的 would behave a lot like か potentially

edit----forgot one…

Interested to see if anyone else has an opinion, thoughts, or can has the answer to this and the か

[Schuylerca]

So didn’t quite get what the answers I was hoping for on here (still think there is some better way to translate it by a fixed equivalent meaning like というところ) but…I did find out what was confusing about the か。Figured I’d at least post this in case anyone else wanted the know the answer… assuming I’m not completely wrong…

first off…regarding the か in the example sentence…she contracted かしら, so it could be replaced with かな、だろう、etc…

But the question about what Jisho has was still unclear to me:

…so after MUCH MUCH more digging finally found a site that sort of explains it (at least I think)…don’t think it’s grammar so much as it’s already a part of the individual vocab.

This is the site if anyone wants to read all the details for themselves:
- The Affix Ka (imabi.net)

[mrnoone]

@Schuylerca @FredKore

Very good question.
This か is used to express doubt or uncertainty and this is extension of か as particle expressing question, which is extension of its core meaning - marking alternative. Basically it is used when something looks/seems like something, but it is not that in reality.
You can think of it as adding “as if” nuance.

Often used with conjecture expressions, you can see it in かもしれない、かのよう、かの如し (though we don’t really cover かの here).

Notice that you can use よう and 如し without かの without changing the meaning, the “as if” nuance is simply not as pronounced, but it usually is there.

Another example using this function of か(just rephrased the example form the question):
「秋かと思うほど涼しい」
Meaning "So cool that you might think (lit. you can think as if) it is fall.

The か nuances that it is not fall/autumn in reality.

I hope it helps,
Cheers

[Schuylerca]

@mrnoone

Often used with conjecture expressions, you can see it in かもしれない、かのよう、かの如し (though we don’t really cover かの here).

I see N2 and N1 grammar links…
I’m only 24% through N3 ちょっと難しいなぁぁぁ。。。。

Thank you very much for the additional explanation… does help further the understanding…

Do you happen to know anything more about the Jisho no 6 definition…related to か being a suffix for forming adjectives/adverbs? The only source I ever found was that one link.

[FredKore]

I like this explanation! Thank you!
I had only ever heard the “embedded question” explanation before, but I like this idea that it shows doubt and to translate as “as if”.