I have read the grammar page of both ことだし and こととて. To me it seems both are having the same meaning (i.e. because), and when doing review it seems sometimes both can be used, but most of the time they are different. I have tried searching online and it seems there are no one talking about these. What is the difference between these 2?
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I think the key nuance is that こととて has a more negative use-case, used to blame something similar to せいで. Notably the following stands out:
“こととて will primarily be used when asking for forgiveness for something.”
Whereas ことだし is more happenstance with it’s uses. “Since” is used a lot in the translations of ことだし rather than “due to” for こととて, which is highlighting this difference. “Because” has a lot of generic use-cases in English so it’s not the most helpful translation because it loses a lot of nuance.
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Hey @cytsunny !
Although they are both used to present reasons, the nuance is a little different.
ことだし is simply used to list reasons, and it implies that there are additional unstated reasons beyond what the speaker has mentioned.
Example:
In the example sentence もう夜も更けてくることだし、今日のパーティはこれでお開きにしよう, the translation is ‘It’s getting late, so let’s call it a night with this!’, but it has the nuance that ‘getting late’ is not the only reason, but it is one of the main reasons.
こととて is more formal and usually found in writing, and it is mainly used when the speaker is asking for forgiveness or to justify their actions for an undesirable action.
Example:
In the example sentence 新人のこととて、まだ分からないことがたくさんありますが、これからよろしくお願いいたします, the speaker is not saying that being ‘new’ is the main reason for not knowing things, but instead they are asking for forgiveness in advance/giving an excuse for why they will not know a lot of things.
I hope this answers your question!
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