どころの騒ぎではない・どころの話ではない

Japanese
#1

I’ve noticed there appears to be a couple of phrases related to どころではない that evidently mean roughly the same thing (or do they?). They are:

どころの騒ぎではない
どころの話ではない

I found only a handful of hits online about these, several of which appear to be Japanese-language pages geared toward the JLPT. These phrases are treated in the same context as どころではない.

I’m wondering how more fluent or native speakers understand these phrases. 騒ぎ in particular kind of threw me off when I first encountered it. I’m not sure how to think about it in Japanese. Something like, “it’s not to the level of being an uproar?” My brain’s still too English to grasp this entirely. :sweat_smile:

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#2

Hi there!

In Japanese, どころの騒ぎではない means some thing more like ‘far from or beyond’. So if some one says 悲しいどころの騒ぎではない, it means some thing like, 言葉では表せないぐらい悲しい (I cant express how sad I am with words.)

I hope that helps. :grinning:

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#3

Thanks for the reply! If I might also ask, what would 騒ぎ mean in this phrase?

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#4

‘A situation/event that causes a person to get worked up’ is probably the best translation of 騒ぎ used in this context.

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#5

Ah, great! That makes it much easier to understand. Thanks for the explanation.

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