いつの間にか・いつのまにか - Grammar Discussion

Grammar Points
#1

suddenly
unnoticed
without noticing
too soon

Structure

  • いつのまにか + Phrase

[There is a nuance of being surprised at the change. If there is no feeling of surprise, あっという間に can be used instead]

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#2

I answered いきなり in one of the reviews. Is that wrong? What’s the nuance here?

オレはみんなから いつのまにか ポチと呼ばれるようになった。

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#3

As far as I know, the nuance is that いつの間にか is more about not noticing something, while いきなり is more about something happening abruptly.

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#4

@FredKore
The nuances are exactly like @nekoyama says.
Other than that いきなり is natural in this context so I have added it as an alternative answer that pop ups a hint :slight_smile:

I hope it solves the issue!
Cheers

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#5 
しばらく入院していて、久しぶりに外に出ると、**いつの間にか**冬になっていたと見つけた。

I couldn’t remember this construction at all, so I tried 「知らずに」 as a blind shot in the dark. Does the sentence make any sense like that?

#6

I think you would be understood saying 知らず. いつの間にか seems to fit the sentence just a little better because of the nuance of surprise. In my opinion, it’d be fair for there to be a hint that 知らず is not what’s expected because that seems like a good guess to me.

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#7

Hey @SevenZeven !

As @wrt7MameLZE33wlmpCAV said, you probably would be understood, but 知らずに here sounds extremely unnatural. 知らないうちに is a lot more natural. However, 知らないうちに and いつの間にか has a difference in nuance.

知らないうちに has a nuance that you had some control, or was aware about what was happening, but not entirely sure how or why it happened. いつの間にか has the nuance that something happened without warning because you were not paying attention to it or you couldn’t pay attention to it (due to an external or internal force). いつのまにか has the nuance of ‘it happened in a blink of an eye’, but 知らないうちに does not.

Example:

オレはみんなからいつのまにかポチと呼ばれるようになった。
Without noticing they have come to call me “Pochi.”
Nuance: I just started to notice that people are calling me ‘Pochi’. Because I wasn’t paying attention to what people were calling me, it seems to me like people started calling me ‘Pochi’ out of nowhere.

オレはみんなから知らないうちにポチと呼ばれるようになった。
Without noticing they have come to call me “Pochi.”
Nuance: I am aware that people started to call me ‘Pochi’, but I am not entirely sure how that happened or when that started.

We hope that you find this helpful!

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