English translation:
while you are at it
on the occasion
Structure:
Verb + ついでに
Verb[ た ] + ついでに
Noun + の + ついでに
Explanation:
[AついでB ・On the occasion of doing A, doing B as well (on the way)・more formal than 間 or 時]
給油のついでに車を点検してもらいました。
I tried to fill in 「うちに」instead of 「ついでに」but it got marked as wrong. Can anybody help me understand the difference?
With ついでに you go to the shop because you need to refuel the car, but since you’re already at the shop you also have it checked. These two actions don’t necessarily happen at the same time.
With うちに you go to the shop and start refuelling your car, and before you finish refuelling, you also have your car checked during the time it takes you to refuel it.
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Hey there! As @nekoyama has said, the main difference of うちに and ついでに is that うちに has the nuance of ‘the best time something should happen’ and ついでに has the nuance of ‘on the occasion’. The sentence 給油のついでに車を点検してもらいました has the nuance of ‘I had my car checked, because I was already out refueling my car.’
Another thing to remember is that when うちに is attached to a verb, it will be attached to the ている for of verbs. So, if you wanted to use うちに here, the sentence will be 給油しているうちに、車を点検してもらいました。‘I had my car inspected wile I was refueling my car (and it finished before I finished refueling).’
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Hello,
While studying this grammar, I see that the header is ‘序でに’ while it is written as ‘序に’ in the rest of the text when it appears in its kanji form. As per Jisho, both forms are used.
While it appears that it is normally written in kana (ついでに), wouldn’t it be possible to adjust the header and the body of the text so that they both use a common kanji form and include the other version under the header as an orange note?
Thank you for your consideration. 良い一日を