I’ve been running into ほうが for awhile now and I understand most of the sentences I find it in, but there’s some sentences where I just can’t wrap my brain around how it’s being used. I understand when it’s used to say something is better than something else or it’s better to do something, but I just can’t seem to find a way to fit that meaning into certain sentences.
Here’s a few examples:
Thanks in advance!
These examples might be a little hard to figure out the exact meaning without the context from which they were pulled. Because ほう can (and often does) mean one of two choices/sides/people, etc. it’s difficult to determine what’s being compared–or even if that’s the usage.
I can only guess at these examples (and my Japanese is terrible, so take this with plenty of salt).
人数増えた方が 使えるお金増えるし
Increasing the money is the way to increase the number of people
Here, I think ほう is not a comparison, but rather the general meaning of direction/way.
じゃあ１回ずつ投げて—先に入れたほうが 勝ちね
So throwing them in one at a time beforehand is the way to win, huh?
Really need to know the context here to know what 一先に入れた is referencing, but this looks like way/method/manner again, like the first example.
はあ？ バカって言ったほうが バカでしょ この バカ！
Huh? He/she must be the the idiot (you) called an idiot, right? This idiot!
This one I’m the least sure of, and I could have it completely wrong. I regularly have trouble with colloquial Japanese like this. Seeing the context here could help a lot.
I’d be grateful if someone more knowledgeable jumped in and let us know if I’m in the ballpark. I’m just offering what I think based on what little I know. Hopefully, it’s of some help.
Thank you! I actually have the English translations for them if you’d like to look at them. But even with the English translation I was struggling to come to an understanding of how ほうが is being used here.
I usually think of it as “this option (instead of another option)”, where another option is implied.
Also, sometimes 方(かた) is used as a polite way to refer to a person, sorta like “the ones in this direction” without saying “people”. That’s not the usage here, but it gives the idea that it’s used for a very general meaning of “direction”.
See this is where I’m confused though because there isn’t another option implied in these sentences. When this is the case, I can’t really figure out how ほうが is being used.
OK, yeah, those English translations help. I think the context of the Japanese would have made the meaning clearer.
In the second and third sentences, the English phrase “(the) one” is what ほう is. I believe that’s what @FredKore meant when he said “this option (instead of another option).” In English, “the one” sort of has that same nuance. It singles something out, without necessarily even naming the category from which it’s being pulled or naming the reference point. ほう is often used that way in Japanese, too.
Sure there is. There’s many ways I could have more money to spend, but if there’s more people, that’s one way that could happen. 
Okay, this is what I was kind of leaning towards, but I couldn’t really find any translation pointing to this. If this is the case then, do you think のは / のが be used instead?
That’s true, I see it now. I guess I just have a hard time wrapping my brain around that since it’s not directly implying any other options.
のが (needs to be が in this case) would be nominalizing a verb, which isn’t necessarily the same thing. In that case, there’s no hint or nuance that there could be other options. Instead, you’re just talking about the nominalized phrase as if it were a subject about which you were making a statement.
Let’s take a look:
じゃあ１回ずつ投げて—先に入れたほうが 勝ちね
Then, we’ll throw one at a time. The first one who gets it in wins, OK?
じゃあ１回ずつ投げて—先に入れたのが 勝ちね
Then, we’ll throw one at a time. The first getting it in wins, OK?
First what (or who)? In context, you’d probably be understood, but ほう seems to be the more natural of the two in this case. To be honest, I would need someone with a deeper knowledge of Japanese to comment further here.
I agree with @FredKore completely here. I have a habit of almost always reading ほうが as a slightly more polite ‘the one/ones who (A)’.
I have often thought of it as “way” or “to the extent that” in some way or another, whether it be signaling something over something else, signaling cause, direction, or highlighting an option or thing. I think the way that @FredKore called attention to the 方 kanji might give more nuance however. It is quite a diverse phrase that I think is easier to grasp the more you experience it, eventually coming to an overall shape of how to use it and how it’s used.