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