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I have this phrase in my JLPT textbook:

> 私{わたし}の上司{じょうし}は気{き}さくで近寄{ちかよ}りがたい

My translation, which must be incorrect in some way, is, "my superior is hard
to approach as he/she is friendly." It seems to me that `で` implies some kind
of connection or causality. It's not that the superior is friendly _and_ hard
to approach, there is something about their friendliness that results in how
it's hard to approach them.

I'm reasonably sure about the definitions of individual words, but it seems to
end up as an illogical assertion. How can someone who is friendly be hard to
approach?

What am I not understanding about this sentence?
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2013-03-03T07:48:18.697
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2016-10-07T03:43:22.967
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question
grammar word-choice jlpt
How can a friendly person be "hard to approach"?
I think you've more or less got the meaning of the words right. I would say
近{ちか}寄{よ}る means 親{した}しくなるようにする in this context ([sense 2 in
大辞林](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&stype=0&dtype=0&dname=0na&p=%E8%BF%91%E5%AF%84%E3%82%8B)).
親しくなる is similar to the figurative meaning of "get closer [to]" in English, so
your literal translation works pretty well: "hard to approach".

Look at this definition for
[気さく](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&stype=0&dtype=0&dname=0ss&p=%E6%B0%97%E3%81%95%E3%81%8F).
In particular, it says 親{した}しみやす[い], which seems to directly contradict
近寄りがたい. The best translation probably depends on context, and there isn't much
context to base a choice on, so I'll choose the first translation from the
Kenkyusha J-E, which highlights the contradiction: "approachable".

So, we're trying to put these two meanings together:

  * Hard to approach
  * Approachable

I checked a number of dictionaries, but I couldn't figure out a way to make
sense of this contradiction. So, based on comments from @Chocolate and others,
as well as the seeming contradiction between the words, I believe:

**The sentence doesn't really make sense.** Sorry!
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2013-03-03T16:13:01.743
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2013-03-07T06:46:44.980
2013-03-07T06:46:44.980
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answer
The other commentators probably understand these words better than I but I
don't find the concept of a boss who is both friendly (気さく) but able to put
some distance between himself and his staff (近寄りがたい) for the purposes of
managing them that difficult to grasp.

However I just asked a native speaker who tells me, as have the others above,
that the two expressions are complete opposites of each other!
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2013-03-04T21:44:02.257
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2013-03-06T14:21:10.857
2013-03-06T14:21:10.857
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answer