not very・not much, not really・hardly
Structure
- あまり + Verb[ない
- あまり + いAdj[くない
- あまり + Noun + じゃない/ではない
- あまり + なAdj + じゃない/ではない
What action is も performing in this example sentence?
あまり好きじゃない食べ物もたまに食べなくてはいけない。
Sometimes you have to eat food that you don’t really enjoy.
Hey! This just means “also” here. I had originally omitted “also” from the English translation to make it sound more natural. I have updated the English sentence to read: “Sometimes you also have to eat food that you don’t really enjoy.”
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彼女は私の気持をあまり理解していないと思おもう
I don’t really think that she understands how I feel
Perhaps unrelated, but I’m confused on the translation.
Shouldn’t it be “I think that she doesn’t really understand how I feel”?
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@TheUltimateAbsol Yeah the あまり is connected to the 理解していない not the 思う so that translation might be a bit closer.
@TheUltimateAbsol Thank you for drawing this to our attention. I have updated the translation for this sentence. Cheers!
最近彼のことをあまり考えてあげてい ない 。
For the above sentence, which definition of あげる is used for あげて, and what’s the meaning of 考えてあげて? Would it be possible to replace the hiragana for that verb with the kanji?
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あまり 好き じゃない 食物もたまに食なくてはいけない。
Would also love some help breaking down this sentence. Specifically, the end with: 食なくてはいけない
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Hey 
あまり 好き じゃない 食物 も たまに 食べなくてはいけない
too much | like | is not | food** | also | sometimes | must eat***
*with negative expression it can be translated as “not really”, “not much” and so on
** here the word 食物 is modified (described by) expression あまり好きじゃない, in English when the noun is modified we have to add expressions like “that”, “which”, “whose” and so on. So we will add it here to make translation more natural (food that you don’t really like)
*** なくてはいけない is a conjugation that means “must”, so together with 食べる it means “must eat”.
If we connect all of those we get:
Sometimes you also have to eat food that you don’t really enjoy.
I hope it helps!
Cheers!
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なくてはいけない is what confused me; I think that’s new grammar I haven’t yet learned. Thank you!
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Hello!
This also goes for the other あまり grammar points of course, but is this あまり the same as 余り? I know people don’t write the grammar with the kanji itself, but it kind of makes sense to me (not much → no excess) and knowing it for sure would definitely help me with understanding sentences in a more intuitive way.
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I’m a bit confused as to where the あまりgoes + the negative good. The one with “This car isn’t that great”
is あまり いい車くるまではない
But why isn’t it この車はあまりよくない like the example for “This cake isn’t very delicious.”
Hey there @driscoll !
あまり comes right before adjectives, verbs, and nouns. あまりいい車くるまではない, and この車はあまりよくない may seem similar, but it has a slight (very slight) difference in nuance, but it is just mostly a difference in how the sentence was ordered. It similar to saying ‘this car isn’t that great’ and ‘this isn’t a great car’. The nuance of those sentences change a little depending on the context, but other than word order, the meaning is basically the same.
We hope that help!