Fussy question about translation & adjective placement

Japanese
#1

Example sentence in question:

間違いが僅かに見つかってしまった。やり直しだな。
I unfortunately found a slight mistake. Looks like I have to redo it.

In the Japanese, the grammar point 僅かに is modifying the verb, not the noun.
But in the English version, slight is modifying the noun.

This leaves me wondering about the real implied meaning of the Japanese version.
To me, it doesn’t seem to say anything about the extent of the error.
Instead, it feels like it’s emphasizing that the mistake was just barely found (maybe at the last second, right before being released/handed in, etc.).

How do you guys understand this sentence?

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#2

I would think you are right. At first I couldn’t find other example sentences of わずかに in the sense “barely”, but then finally opened a dictionary, and there it is (僅か(ワズカ)とは？ 意味や使い方 - コトバンク) definition 2:

かろうじて。「―に記憶している」「―に難を逃れた」

So I would understand this sentence as “barely found”: either “with great effort” or “just in time”.

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#3

Gonna be contrarian and say that it means a “slight” error or a “few” errors. I’m not a native speaker, but I think the meaning might be more akin to:

  • 間違いが若干見つかってしまった。やり直しだな。
  • 間違いが少々見つかってしまった。やり直しだな。

It’s adverbial in form, but it’s really qualifying the quantity and quality of errors in my reading at least.

#4

Thanks for your perspective!
It made me curious about how you’d see the difference between these two:

  1. 間違いが僅かに見つかってしまった。
  2. 僅かな間違いが見つかってしまった。

To me, #1 feels like 僅かに is focusing on how the mistake was found (barely caught, just in time), while #2 seems to be directly describing the size or amount of the mistake.
Do you think there’s a meaningful nuance difference between them, or would you read them as essentially the same in most contexts?

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#5

In my reading, I think they are all adverbial quantifiers that convey there were a small number of mistakes. If it is a an actual adjective it is qualifying the mistake itself. I think that’s the diff in the last examples to me.

The nuance between the quantifiers I think comes down to size (僅か is tiny), formality, and perceived objectivity. 少々 is definitely the most casual and admits the biggest size range, while 僅か is the tiniest and most formal. 若干 is what I personally am most familiar with on a day-to-day basis in these kinds of sentences.

I have to admit I don’t get a sense in which 僅か is describing the manner in which the mistakes were discovered. (eg with effort, barely, etc)

#6

I’m just a learner, by I’d expect that to modify the noun (間違い) the modifier would have no particle に attached. Regardless if it’s describing the amount or quality of those mistakes.

間違いが僅か見つかってしまった。
Small errors (either quality or quantity) had been discovered.
間違いが一つ見つかってしまった。
One error had been discovered.

As soon as there’s a に, I’d expect it to modify the following verb.

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