よりほかない - Grammar Discussion

Grammar Points
#1

to have no choice but
no other way than
have to

Structure

  • Verb + よりほかない
  • Verb + よりほか(に/には/は)ない

硬

[Aほかない is used when nothing can be done except A, based on some circumstances]

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#2

I have a question about example sentence:

泥棒の攻撃から守るためだったため、相手を撃つよりほかなかった

I don’t understand why ため is used twice here. Does it have any special meaning?

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#3

Don’t quote me on this, but it feels to me that the first ため denotes that it was “for the sake of” protecting yourself from the thieve’s attacks,
while the second ため is more like “due to” that happening, I had no choice to hit back.

Take it apart like this:
泥棒の攻撃から守るためだった
It was for the sake of protecting myself from the thieves attacks.

ため
“due to” me having the reasoning above [this connects the sentences]

相手を撃つよりほかなかった
I had no choice but to shoot.

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#4

このコースレイアウトだと、刻()むよりほかない。

Question on the vocab / translation in this sample sentence.

If it is this course layout, there is no choice but to lay up the ball.

I don’t understand the English sentence at all. Where is “layup” and “ball” in this sentence? 刻む definitions don’t really reference basketball and tried to look it up but came up empty.

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#5

It’s a golf thing, apparently.

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#6

I came to ask this, after wondering what 刻む meant…although I got results relating to basketball, so I am still none the wiser about the English (maybe American) or the Japanese!

#7

I think it’s answered in that link probably, but just in case anyone ever comes here wondering:

A lay-up is when you hit a golf ball not directly at the hole, but to another place where you can avoid danger (water, sand, trees, pack of wild dogs, etc) or to a place where your next shot might be easier. Maybe the hole is further than you can hit and there’s a lake (or those dogs) between you and it. You’d need to hit it around the lake. That’s a lay up.

The Japanese term for this is 刻む, but they also sometimes just use レイアップする.

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