当たり前 explanation?

Bunpro
#1

Okay, this one’s just getting me and I’m wondering if someone can help me out with a couple of these. I always learned 当たり前 with the “natural” meaning, so I get that, and I get the “commonplace” side of it, but in one of the example sentences I always get wrong because I’m just not making the association between this vocab and the meaning being associated with it. The question is:

周りの人の親切を当たり前の事と思ってはいけません。
We shouldn’t take the kindness of others for granted.

This particular one I just am having a hard time understanding why it’s connected to the idea of taking something for granted. I can see it as “don’t think this is normal” but is it actually conveying a meaning of taking for granted here? Or is this a case of the “don’t take this as normal,” being sort of a saying that conveys a similar meaning, but sounds weird in English so it’s translated as, “take for granted?”

I guess I’m just trying to see if this really has “take for granted” as a meaning and I just need to really get that in my head, or if this is more connected to the other meanings in a way that my brain just isn’t wanting to grasp. I’d love if someone could explain this for me. Thank you!

I also wanted to say that I love the community here and being able to ask things like this.

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#2

Hi!

This.

The literal translation would be as you say: we must not think that the kindness of the people around us is one of the obvious things. I would say that the expression ‘何を当たり前の事と思う’ could be translated as ‘to take something for granted’, though the actual verb is 決め込む.

HTH!

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#3

I think you can use natural in this case as well:
“We can’t think about the kindness of others as of something natural”

「母は部屋を掃除するのは当たり前じゃないすか？」
「"当たり前"じゃないぞ！」
So we can use “naturally” here as well (I think)

Not sure in nuances as I’m still a quite early learner, but it feels we can use 当然 in most cases we use 当たり前 (with less 無礼さ I guess)

Just looked it up, and one possible 語源 for 当たり前 is that 当然 has another reading 当前, which was read using 音読み which led to a creation of 当たり前. Have no idea how true it is.

But to be fairly objective I think I didn’t get the point of confusion well enough…

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#4

Most of the dictionaries I looked through have definitions that fit your initial intuition. The translator is using slightly looser meanings to achieve a more natural sounding sentence in English. I did find one entry that includes the “taken for granted” meaning:

IMG_2091
IMG_20911668×2388 249 KB

But I think this dictionary is also going in the direction of having natural sounding English rather than fitting closely with the Japanese source meaning.
類語

当たり前

正せい常じょう

本来の正しい状態であるさま。「―な判断」「ダイヤが―に復する」「―値」↔異常
正しょう気き

精神が正常なこと。気が確かであるさま。「―の沙汰さたではない」「―を取り戻す」
ノーマル

①正常。「―な感性」↔アブノーマル②標準的。「―なタイプ」〔normal〕
正ただしい

①事実・真理に合っている。「―－答え／見方」②きちんとしている。「―姿勢」「規則／礼儀－―」
真面まとも

正常なさま。きちんとしたさま。「―な－生活／商売」「―に応対する」
真まっ当とう

会実直なさま。「―な－暮らし／やり方」「―に生きる」
当あたり前まえ

会ごく普通であること。「―の－生活／服装」
▽→正当・公正

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#5

This is helpful, guys. I appreciate it. I think I need to just change the way I translate this one in my head rather than think of it as the translation provided.

1 Like