3791
I have been going over the JLPT test from 1999 and came across this problem
that stumped me. For those planning to take the previous tests as practice you
may want to avoid this question.

> 優勝戦{ゆうしょうせん}は、意外{いがい}に＿＿＿＿＿勝負{しょうぶ}が決まった。
>
> **A** あっけなく **B** そっけなく **C** はかなく **D** ものたりなく

The correct answer is **A** , あっけなく, but I'm not 100 percent sure why this is
a better choice than ものたりなく. Even the other two look like acceptable choices
to me.

In the end, after looking up all the definitions, I picked **A** because of
the 意外{いがい}に, which suggests that the 優勝戦{ゆうしょうせん} was expected to not be so
simply decided. But when I thought about it more, D also seems like a suitable
answer because I would expect the championship game to be interesting as much
as non-trivial.

I concluded that D was not correct only because I could find many examples of
it being used, but I'm afraid I'm still missing some of the nuance behind the
correct answer.

For any interested further in my logic, I did this problem on my stream where
I go over all the answers and look up examples, recorded at
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnmEiRkck3s&feature=channel_video_title](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnmEiRkck3s&feature=channel_video_title)
from 6'30" and continued at:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShOpaZ9iOmw&feature=channel_video_title](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShOpaZ9iOmw&feature=channel_video_title)
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-11-23T22:17:08.137
3790
2011-11-24T01:35:18.730
2011-11-23T23:16:31.667
878
878
question
word-choice jlpt
あっけなく vs ものたりなく
`ものたりない` means "unsatisfying" or "lacking something". `あっけない` means almost the
same thing but seems to contain the nuance of "disappointingly brief/short".
In fact, my dictionary says `ものたりないほど短【みじか】い`.

As you mentioned, **A** is the correct answer because of the `意外に`. It's
(objectively) expected that the championship match would be exciting and
drawn-out. However, it was "unexpectedly, disappointingly short". `ものたりない`
seems to be more subjective to the speaker, so "unexpectedly" isn't really
applicable. I.e., matches are not usually played to in a certain way with the
intent of giving specific emotions to the spectators; they are played to
determine which team/player is better. The enjoyment of the spectators is just
a side-effect.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-11-23T22:32:54.543
3791
2011-11-24T01:35:18.730
2011-11-24T01:35:18.730
78
78
3790
answer
According to Yahoo, 呆気ない means simple/unsubstantial and thus uninteresting. It
also shows that one's expectations were unfulfilled because something was
lacking. Seems very fitting for this. 物足りない doesn't have this rich nuance. It
can be pretty much directly translated. It means something, you may or may not
know what, was missing.

Source：

X呆気ないX ＞思ったより内容が貧弱または単純で、おもしろみがない。期待外れでもの足りない。 「―・い結末」 ＜－－looks like it's used
for results, so it's perfect for this question.

物足りない ＞何か足りないようで不満である。どことなく不足である。ものたらない。

Just discovered this site. Seems very interesting. I'm preparing for the test
myself, so I need as many resources as possible. Just one thing... what's with
all the furigana? It's really hard to read and, in my opinion, hinders
learning. And again, it's really, really hard to read....
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-11-23T23:55:33.697
3792
2011-11-23T23:55:33.697
879
3790
answer