How do I express the concept of "less" in japanese?

Japanese
#1

Preabmle: If this is too much for you to read, then please consider only answering the last question at the bottom. This is the one most important to me.

Okay, so. This is going to be a long question, but I am going to make this as straight forward as I can, so please bear with me.

Ever since I learned the word もっと I have always wondered what the word for “less” would be.
I now know that there is no word for “less” and that もっと does not 100% mean “more” in all cases as well. At least when compared directly to english.

I have dug around the internet a bit, and asked a few japanese natives about this. But what I have found is, that they have quite a few problems explaining this, because it seems (at least to me) that the concept of words like “more” and “less” is kind of foreign to them. (Or maybe I was just too dumb to understand them x’D) So this is why I am asking here now, to maybe get a bit of help form non-japanese japanese speakers who maybe went through the same thing and can explain it a bit better to an english speaker.

This all started when I asked a question about how natural some sentences were. There were three sentences, and one japanese native said, that he would personally choose sentence #1.

I then wanted to ask (in japanese) if the other two were completely unnatural, or just less natural than the first one.

What I wanted to write was this:

他の文は全然自然じゃないですか。他の文より自然だけですか。

But I wasn’t sure about this. How would you personally ask: “Are the other two sentences unnatural, or just less natural than that one?”

So, this led me down a rabbit hole. One that I won’t go into much detail about. I will instead ask you something concrete, that you can actually reply to :smiley:

I will write some example sentences, and then what I think they mean. Some of these will be very unnatural even in english, I know that. Please tell me if a) I am grammatically correct (even if it is unnatural, just to understand if it’s technically correct) and b) if it is natural :smiley:

これをもっと冷たくしてください。 Please make this colder.
これをより冷たくしてください。 Please make this less cold.

これをもっと冷たくなくしてください。 Please make this more “not cold”. (warmer)
これをより冷たくなくしてください。 Please make this less “not cold” (colder)

これより前回は多めです。 Last time was more than this. (This is less than last time)
これは前回より少ない。 This is less than last time.
前回に比べてこれはもっと少ない。 Compared to last time, this is less.

この水はその水より、より冷たいです。 This water is less cold than that water.
この水はその水より、冷たいです。 This water is colder than that water.
↑
I am especially interested in these two sentences right here. If you answer nothing else, than please just tell me if this is:
a) grammatically correct
b) a natural thing to write.

1 Like
#2

I’ve never heard of ～より、より冷たい
この水はその水より冷たいです is a normal sentence
You could also just say その水より冷たい or この水の方が冷たい

1 Like
#3

(I’m sure this is not a perfect academic explanation, but just offering a thought)

I think one thing to realize is that “more” is used two ways in English:
1- that there is a greater amount of something
2- as a way to modify an adjective that can’t use “-er” to make it relative (you can say “stronger” but you can’t say “boring-er” – it’s “more boring”)
…So you have to be careful as to which concept you’re trying to say in Japanese.

Second, as I understand it, より is a postposition word – that it modifies the word in front of it.
この水はその水より、冷たいです。 ← This makes sense.
この水はその水より、より冷たいです。 ← This doesn’t. (not grammatical)

To say “less cold”, I think you’d have to say something like this:
この水はその水ほど、あまり冷たいです。This water, to the extent of that water, is not that cold.

Last note: “This water is less cold than that water” ← I think “less cold” is technically incorrect in English, but it’s a modern common way of saying it. It should be either:
That water is colder than this water.
This water is not as cold as that water.
This water is warmer than that water.

1 Like
#4

I think this is actually grammatically correct, but it means “this water is colder than that water”. The first より would be the comparison particle and the second より would be the adverb that is synonymous with もっと.

4 Likes
#5

Thanks for answering!
That’s what I was wondering, because a native speaker told me, that this is a grammatical way of saying it. I wondered about two より right next to each other. He also said, that より also means “than” in the sense of a comparison.

So, just to clarify if I instead wrote this:
この水はその水より、もっと冷たいです。

It would also mean: This water is colder than that water. ?

Let’s ignore the fact, that “less cold” is not something one would usually say in english. How would you write (in japanese) a sentence like:
“This water is less cold than that water” ?
Or, if you want a different kind of sentence: “Is this sentence less natural than that sentence?”

2 Likes
#6

Thank you for answering!
Yes, I am aware about the two different uses for “more” in english. If I wanted to express a greater amount of something, I would probably use 多め for that. Like:
ご飯をもっと多めでください。

Same for less, I would say it like this:
ご飯をもっと少なめでください。

Or 以下 and 以上

Same for “more adjective”.
このコーヒーをもっと熱くしてください。

The thing I am trying to understand is the “less adjective” concept in japanese.

I know that “less cold” is not really a natural thing to say, that’s not what this is about. It could be any adjective, I am just trying to understand the concept.

But if it’s easier, then let’s use an adjective where “more” and “less” makes sense. “Natural”.

So, how would you say “Is this sentence less natural than that sentence?”
I mean in the sense of:
“I would use sentence #1.”
“Is sentence #2 completely unnatural, or just ‘less’ natural than sentence #1?”

2 Likes
#7

Gotcha. I’m not sure. This is the best I could come up with…

彼はその文章をもっと自然に言った。 He said that sentence more naturally.
彼はその文章をあまり自然じゃなく言った。 He said that sentence less naturally (not as naturally).
その文章はもっと自然だ。That sentence is more natural.
その文章はあまり自然じゃない。That sentence is less natural (not as natural).

I was curious so I googled “もっと 対義語”-- the first hit was an English lesson :joy::joy::joy:
It may not answer your question directly, but it has a couple more ideas…

moreの反対語はlessで、「より少ない」という意味です。
The opposite word of ‘more’ is ‘less’, meaning 「than few, fewer」

I need to eat less. (食べるのを減らさなければならない。)

more と better の違い. 最も頻出する比較級 | 名古屋で英会話ならマスターイングリッシュ

Yes, that’s correct. :+1:

1 Like
#8

Thank you for your input and effort!

1 Like