finally
after all
Structure
- とうとう + Phrase
For the question:
____休むことができる
I think there are some other potential answers here that could be given orange texts rather than being immediately marked as incorrect -
e.g. 最後に, 結局
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Good call! I have updated the answers that throw hints/warnings for this grammar point to catch more answers like 最後に and 結局. Cheers!
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@deltacat3 Hey! I apologize for the confusion. The “[masculine]” hint at the end of the sentence refers to 飯 in 昼飯, which is mostly used by men when referring to a meal. I have updated the hint to include this information and hopefully clear up any confusion. Cheers!
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Could やっと be used instead of とうとう in the context of “finally?” I was looking at this sentence:
たべものの動画をやっと見れました！おいしそうですね！
Then I thought maybe it could be rewritten as:
とうとうたべものの動画を見れました！ おいしそうですね！
Are やっと and とうとう interchangeable?
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I’ll give it a shot based on my own understanding of the matter, but please be aware that I am still studying myself, so take everything here with a grain of salt. I will share some resources I checked before writing this post though, so that you could verify if you wanted.
Not really. Though there are situations in which やっと and とうとう can be used interchangeably, these are somewhat rare, as often they’ll hint at either a positive or negative nuance about the topic. First a bit on the nuance difference between the two. You’ll often hear people say that やっと has a bit of a “happy” feeling to it. The explanation from the “Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar” says it best :
“[やっと] indicates a positive situation that has been realized with the greatest efforts”. Note here though that the “greatest efforts” part is up to the viewpoint of the speaker, so it does not have to be a herculean task.
とうとう is used for a situation (that was expected) that occurred after a long time. The result is often negative in nature (though not always).
Or in other words : Think of やっと with more of an “at last” feeling, something that took a lot of time (and effort) but has finally arrived. とうとう also means something finally happened after a long time, and the outcome is often negative, but can be used for both good and bad outcomes.
So, with regards to your second sentence, using とうとうwould give a bit of a signal like I had to watch it eventually, thus giving a completely mixed signal with it looking delicious.
Note : とうとう and ついに however are (as far as I’m aware) interchangeable.
Used resources :
A dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar page 528 - 532
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Thank you mathijsdm for the explanation! Much appreciated!
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Hi!
I am confused by what seems to be a contradiction in the last example sentence and the boxed text of the grammar write up.
The last example is:
とうとう夏休みが終わる日が来た
While the boxed text says:
Caution - とうとう is not used in situations where you expect something to happen/start, but there has not actually been a period of time in which some sort of effort was being made to achieve a result. A good example of this is the changing of seasons. You might want to say ‘finally, it’s summer!’, but this is not something that anyone has done anything to achieve.
Why is it okay to use とうとう for saying the last day of summer break is here, but not to say a season is starting?
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I think that box goes a bit too far; とうとう doesn’t require active effort by the speaker.
It’s however still true that いよいよ is used much more commonly with a season that’s just starting; I think it’s because it sounds more positive (though it can be negative too) and it works when an event that the speaker was waiting for starts. When I say いよいよ夏が来た I’m saying it’s finally summer; I’ve been waiting for summer. I’m not saying that after long months of it not being summer, in the end summer came after all.
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Thank you for your explanation!