Ranking strength of degree qualifiers like なかなか・けっこう etc

There’s a bunch of degree qualifiers and I don’t have a good sense of how ‘strongly’ each feels.

My (probably incorrect) guess of strength, with very strong (100% or 0%, depending on if positive or negative) at the top

  • まったく〜ない
  • すこしも〜ない
  • ちょっとも〜ない
  • ぜんぜん〜ない
  • とても〜ない
  • もっとも
  • けっこう
  • 決して〜ない
  • だいたい
  • かなり
  • わずかに
  • なかなか・なかなか〜ない
  • あまり〜ない

Am I missing any? Thoughts on the ordering?

Should the scale actually be from 100% (always) to 0% (never), instead of grouping high intensity (always/never) together? It felt like, for example, なかなか and なかなか〜ない were similar degrees of strength in opposite directions, but maybe that’s not true.

We have a helpful ranking of politeness levels for requests and a potential ranking of “must do” formality and I’d love to have that for the always/very/sometimes/quite/not much qualifiers - and if it’s good maybe linked from the grammar pages.

From bunpro hints:

  • まったく, すこしも, ちょっとも are stronger than ぜんぜん
  • けっこう, とても, かなり are stronger than なかなか
  • ぜんぜん, すこしも are stronger than なかなか〜ない
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There’s got to be more of those. A few candidates that come to mind:

  • そこそこ
  • わずか
  • いっさい(ない)
  • めったに(ない)
  • たしょう
  • わりと
2 Likes

Hi!

I also miss 決して〜ない.