very
extremely
can’t help but do
Structure
- Verb[ て ] + ならない
- いAdj[ くて ] + ならない
- なAdj + で + ならない
[Mostly used with adjectives that describe feelings]
How interchange is て仕方がない with the examples sentences, at least for the “can’t help but”?
This is hard to feel the translations because these seem like 3 different degrees intensity in one grammar point. I’m reading a “beyond control” type of meaning but ‘very’ and ‘extremely’ doesn’t seem match it. Are there varieties in meaning or is it just translation choices?
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てしようがない、てしょうがない てならない てたまらない are all very similar, to the point of almost completely overlapping in the way they are used.
All of those express extreme physiological and psychical feelings that are of extreme degree, cannot be controlled, etc.
It is important to mention that those are “private” expressions, so they are used to express feelings of speaker/writer. If you want to talk about other people extreme feelings you have to use らしい、ようだ, etc.
First of all,
てならない is a domain of people around 40, or even 50+ years old. It is much less often used by a younger generation. You can see it more often in literature, etc.
The most common expressions nowadays are てたまらない、てしようがない、てしょうがない、て仕方がない、てしかない。
てしょうがない is a casual expression and is mostly used in casual conversations.
Other than that, it is completely identical in meaning with てしようがない and てしかたがない.
Now, lets come to differences. However, even though I say differences, those might be called “preferences”, when expressions are more commonly, or less commonly used. A lot of people will consider all of them completely interchangeable (well maybe with exception of てならない which sounds a bit old).
- てたまらない
–more often than the other expressions used with expressions of desire like たい and ほしい
–much less often used with spontaneous expressions, that are beyond will of the speaker and expressions of thinking and perception like 見える、思える、気になる、思われる、感じられる、思う、感じる and てくる
–often used with 嫌い、好き
–more emotive than other expressions - てしょうがない・てしかたない・てしかたがない・てしようがない
–used with expressions of desire like たい and ほしい, but less often than てたまらない
–often used with spontaneous expressions, that are beyond will of the speaker and expressions of thinking and perception like 見える、思える、気になる、思われる、感じられる、思う、感じる and てくる
–used with 嫌い、好き
–more often than the other expressions used in negative-sense
–てしょうがない is used mostly in casual speech
–generally more versatile than other expressions - てならない
–more often used by older people, much less often by younger generations
–often used with spontaneous expressions, that are beyond will of the speaker and expressions of thinking and perception like 見える、思える、気になる、思われる、感じられる、思う、感じる and てくる
–rarely used with expressions of desire like たい and ほしい (it was more common in the past though)
–rarely used with 好き and 嫌い
–less often used with physiological expressions 腹が立つ
–more than the others limited to feelings, so 暑くてならない and the like are much less common
To sum up, あの服がほしくてならない or 泣けてきてたまらない are understandable, and some people will consider those completely natural (and a lot of others will think of them as at least a bit unnatural phrases), but あの服が欲しくてたまらない and 泣けてきてしょうがない are much more common. So most of the time, those are translation choices.
PS
There is another similar expression, てかなわない、which is used only with negative situations.
I hope it helps,
Cheers 
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Another very thorough response, thank you! Nice list, I think I’ve seen most but was unfamiliar with all these nuances.
This helps ‘lock in’ the grammar point, particular given it’s a 1st person expression only
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Unrelated to our previous discussion, ずにはいられない has mention of てならない as a hint/warning but there is nothing for ずにはいられない. I would post this in the bug section but I’m entirely confident (there may be a nuance I’m missing). Is this interchangeable?
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It would need to be 気にせずにはいられない but the が is locked here as part of the example, otherwise I believe it would be interchangeable.
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To be honest, I would stick to てならない in this example.
ずにはいられない is generally used in contexts when one wants to do something so bad that they cannot control themselves. Expresses strong impulse.
I would say that average Japanese would not really understand what one means by:
詐欺にあった気にせずにはいられない。
てならない is more generic.
詐欺にあった気がしてならない。
I hope it helps,
Cheers!
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I’m really confused by this point because I don’t really understand the underlying concept of the Japanese construction.
To take one of the examples discussed previously here:
詐欺にあった気がしてならない。
I think that a very literal word-for-word translation would be something like “it can’t become that I feel that it was a fraud” or something like that, but this seems to imply the opposite of what it actually means.
I actually first encountered this point outside of Bunpro in a videogame I was playing, and I had to look it up here because I couldn’t make sense of it even in context since it seemed to say the opposite of what it’s actually saying.
I don’t get where this negative is coming from and how this expression came to mean that.
I don’t think this works as a literal translation, the two parts aren’t linked in this fashion.
なる can mean a lot more than just “become”, and meanings like “be permissible” or “be able to” might be related, but I don’t know how exactly it came to be used in this fashion. Japanese dictionaries sometimes have separate entries for ならない that mention this usage specifically, so it’s probably not something that can be trivially derived from the normal meanings of なる alone.
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Yeah I noticed that dictionaries would have a separate item specifically for this use, but it’s quite funny as a result because it seems like the word says one thing and its opposite:
- and 2. here almost seem to contradict each other.
Also the first example with 気になってならない is really adding insult to injury!