I thought ぐらい was for amounts. Also based on other sentences for ごろ this seems like it should be the answer.
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ごろ is used with approximate time (as in time on the clock.)
８時ごろ
１０月ぐらい
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This caught me out too. I assumed that since October was being used as a specific point in time (i.e. from around the start or end of October), ごろ would be most appropriate answer here.
So if ごろ is incorrect, then is ぐらい being used to approximate October as the span of time in which Autumn is the season? Is ぐらい used to describe term?
Because in my head I have these two grammar points memorised as such…
Approximation:
ごろ：used for approximate points in time.
- Times of day, week, etc
- Relative time expressions
ぐらい：used for approximate duration’s or quantity’s.
- Spans of time
- Amounts of objects
Any more insight or clarification on this subject would be very helpful, as I feel I need a little more help disambiguating these two grammar points! (^O^)／
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@deltacat3 So I think I’ve figured out the logic here.
So ごろ marks specific points in time and ぐらい marks quantities.
If we were saying something starts around a specific time (say 3時) then we’d say:
3時ごろに何かが始まる。
So maybe it actually starts at 3時5分 or 2時55分 but it’s still close to 3時.
But if instead it wasn’t starting around specific time just in or after a specific time (once again 3時) we’d say:
3時ぐらい何かが始まる。
Then the “something” might actually start at anytime between 3時 and 3時59分.
Thus if we knew fall was going to start within a few days of 10月 but not the specific day we would say 10月ごろ but since we don’t know whether it’s at the start of 10月 or the end of 10月 we use 10月ぐらい to ask if starts in the time frame of 10月.
Thoughts?
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Ah! This way of thinking makes a lot of sense to me. So as you say ぐらい may be used to express something occurring at some point within period of time like X時 (1-60min) or X月 (1-30days).
Making ごろ approximate points in time and ぐらい approximating within spans of time.
Implied Nuance?:
３時ごろ：Around 3 o’clock (sometime around 3時’s point in time)
３時ぐらい：Around 3 o’clock (sometime within 3時’s implied duration)
Also apologies for the late reply, it seems that we live in quite different time-zones.
So happy greetings from ニュージーランド！
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I don’t know this for sure but it was the sense I was starting to get after looking at several examples and google results.
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