すごく良い?すごい良い? [どっちシリーズ その14]

こんにちは!時が経つのは早いもので、今月も残り少しですね。

今日は「すごく」と「すごい」について。日本語の日常会話に触れた経験をお持ちの方なら、一度はイ形容詞の「すごい」をそのまま副詞のように使う用法に遭遇されたことがあると思います。


「すごく」の代わりに使われる「すごい」 :memo:

物事の程度を強調したいとき、甚だしいことを表現したいとき、どんな言葉を使いますか?標準的な表現だと「とても」「本当に」「かなり」、フォーマル寄りの表現だと「非常に」「大層」「大変」「実に」、スラング寄りの表現だと「めっちゃ」「超」「くそ」などなど、いろいろな表現がありますね。

ご存じのとおり、「すごく」もよく使われる表現の一つです。「すごく」は主に話し言葉として日常的に広く使われています。本来はイ形容詞「すごい」の連用形の副詞的用法ですが、辞書によっては「すごく」を副詞として扱うものもあります。

日常会話では、この「すごく」に代わって「すごい」が使われることがよくあります。イ形容詞の活用ルールに沿って考えると、「すごい」の用法は文法的に間違っているのですが、「すごい楽しかった」や「すごく楽しかった」という表現はどちらも普通に使われています。


この二つに違いはあるの? :face_with_monocle:

この「すごく」と「すごい」に違いはあるのでしょうか。個人的にどのようなときに「すごい」を使うかを考えてみたところ、以下の理由が思い当たりました。

1. フレンドリーさを出したい。
「すごく」よりも「すごい」の方が砕けた表現なので、親しい仲の家族や友人と話すときや、誰かとさらに距離を縮めたいときに使うことがあります。

2. 「すごく」をもっと強調したい。
「すごく」だけでは物足りないときに、あえて文法規則から外した言い方をすることで、「すごく」がさらに強まるように感じます。もっともっと強調したいときは「すっごい」や「すんごい」、「すーごい」と言うこともあります。

3. 「すごく」よりも「すごい」の方が言いやすい。
発音すべき子音が少ないからです。これはただの怠慢かもしれません…。(とはいえ、発音は言いやすい方へとどんどん流されていくものなのだなあと、私はこのシリーズを始めてから感じている… :leaves:


注意してほしいこと :ghost:

「すごい」は日常会話で一般的ではありますが、やはり文法的には誤りなので、この表現に違和感を覚える人も多いようです。書き言葉としては今も「すごく」が主流です。「すごい」の使用は幼稚に聞こえたり、品がないと思われることもあるので、特に改まった場面や文章で使うのは控えましょう。多用は禁物です!私もできるだけ使わないようにしています :zipper_mouth_face:

また、そもそも連体形の「すごい」は名詞を修飾するので、「すごい」を副詞の副詞のように使うことが常態化すると、以下のような文に遭遇したときに、ちょっと困ってしまいます。

  • すごい勉強をした
  • すごく勉強をした

前者は本来「勉強自体がすごい」ことを表しますが(どんな勉強や)、副詞的な用法である場合には、後者と同じく「たくさん勉強した」という意味になってしまうからです。このような場合、文脈から判断する必要が出てきてしまいます。

以上、日常会話の頻出ワードの一つ、「すごく」と「すごい」についてでした!少しでも参考になれば幸いです。また来週!千絢 :smile_cat:

English

Hello! Time flies, and there are only a few days left in the month.

Today’s topic is すごく and すごい. If you’ve had the chance to experience everyday Japanese conversation, you might have encountered situations where the adjective すごい is used as an adverb at least once.


Using すごい instead of すごく :memo:

When you want to emphasize the degree or extent of something, what words do you use? In standard expressions, you might say とても (very), 本当に (really), or かなり (quite). For more formal expressions, there are 非常に (extremely), 大層 (greatly), 大変 (very), and 実に (truly). In more slang-like expressions, you might hear めっちゃ (really), 超 (super), くそ (damn), and so on.

As you may know, すごく is also one of the common expressions. It is widely used in daily life, mainly in spoken language. Originally, すごく is the conjunctive form of the adjective すごい, but some dictionaries treats すごく as an adverb.

In daily conversation, you’ll often find すごい used in place of すごく. Grammatically, according to the rules for い-adjectives, this usage of すごい is technically incorrect, but both of すごい楽しかった and すごく楽しかった are commonly used as the meaning of ‘it was very fun.’


Is there a difference between these two? :face_with_monocle:

Is there a difference between すごく and すごい? Reflecting on when I personally use すごい, I came up with the following reasons:

1. To sound more friendly.
Since すごい is more casual than すごく, I sometimes use it when talking to close family or close friends, or when I want to become even closer to someone.

2. To emphasize すごく even more.
When すごく alone doesn’t feel strong enough, intentionally deviating from grammatical rules by using すごい can make the emphasis feel stronger, it seems. If I want to emphasize it even more, you might say すっごい, すんごい, すーごい, or すごーい.

3. It’s easier to say すごい than すごく.
It’s because it has fewer consonants to pronounce than すごく. This might just be laziness…
(Yet, since starting this series, I’ve realized how pronunciation tends to shift to the easier way to say it :leaves:)


Things to Be Careful About :ghost:

すごい is common in everyday conversation, but it’s still grammatically incorrect, and many people might feel that this expression is strange. In written language, すごく is still mainstream. Using すごい might come across as childish or unrefined, so it’s best to avoid it in formal settings or writing. Don’t overuse it - I also try to avoid using it as much as possible :zipper_mouth_face:

Furthermore, since the attributive form of すごい modifies nouns, if it becomes common to use すごい as an adverb, it might create confusion when encountering sentences like すごい勉強をした and すごく勉強をした.

The former originally means ‘the study itself is great’ (what kind of stydy?), but when used adverbially, it means ‘I studied a lot’ as in the latter case. In such cases, we need to judge from the context.

So, it was about one of the commonly used words すごい and すごく! I hope this was helpful! See you next week! From Chihiro :smile_cat:


過去の投稿/Previous posts
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Have you guys considered adding a “Blog” section to the site so I can see these? As it’s quite unfortunate seeing this get buried in the sea of other posts from non-Bunpro staff. Kinda take a page out of how Tofugu does it.

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From now on, when I make a mistake with my Japanese, these will be my go-to excuses!

me: 私がペンです。
sensei: I think you meant, 私のペンです。
me: No no no, I intentionally deviated from the grammatical rules in order to get closer.
sensei: Closer to a pen ?!?! なんで!

@Chihiro I also hear すーげ! from the guys on Terrace house when they get particularly excited about something - I’ve assumed its a more masculine version of すごい

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This is arguably grammatical as が used to have a similar function to の and still does in some phrases - if you say 我がペンである then it may stylistically fit better :wink:

This is general East Japanese slang. Where I live (the cool part of Japan) すご is more common. I’ll let Chihiro give details though as you asked her directly.


By the way, in English this phenomenon is called a “flat adverb”, where the adjective and adverb look identical. For example, you don’t drive fastly but you do drive fast.

Interestingly やばい, in the slang usage, is used only as a flat adverb when adverbial (やばい美味しい is fine but やばく美味しい is just wrong, I believe - correct me if I’m wrong!) compared with すごい・すごく which can be used either way (context depending). English also has this (drive quick vs drive quickly).

I am waiting for えぐい to turn into this kind of flat adverb or maybe it already has and I missed it. Where I live やばない is acceptable as a question (これ、やばない?) but the other day I heard a student say えぐない so I think we must be close…

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Hi, thank you for your comment @rdennison7! Yes, we’ve been thinking about it!

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僕の元彼女は『すっげ』と言ったら、面白かったよ。 :joy:

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Closer to a pen :joy:

I think すーげ (or すげー) isn’t necessarily masculine, rather, it’s very casual (youth) slang. I myself occasionally use it when I don’t have to worry about my choice of words.
I haven’t watched Terrace House, but I can imagine that female cast members on the reality dating show, who want to be, or feel they should be, kind of mannered, attractive, or sophisticated, are not likely to use it while being filmed. Or, people who use such a slang might not be cast in the first place :thinking:

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Flat adverbs! I remember being very confused by them when I was learning English in school.

やばく美味しい sounds very wrong. やばい美味しい is common to say, but it sounds like a shortened expression of the original expression やばいくらい美味しい… :thinking: This is just my language sencse though. There is one theory that the origin of やばい comes from a criminal secret language やば, and if this is true, it might explain why やばい isn’t conjugated like other adjectives.

I have good news for you! えぐない is also being used by my cousin from Okayama (a prefecture famous for its aggressive-sounding dialects) :raised_hands:

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「すっげ」は私もときどき言います…:joy:

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