18590
> のみこむのに苦労【くろう】した日本語【にほんご】は、佃煮【つくだに】にするほどあった。

According to the book explanation ほど is being used here to adduce an extreme
example to metaphorically indicate the degree or severity of something. In
this sentence, as I understand it, the writer is using 佃煮【つくだに】 (which I
understand has a strong flavor) to indicate how hard it was to assimilate
Japanese.

However I'm not sure if I got it right, I cannot quite explain or translate
the sentence. I tried to look for other examples of the grammatical pattern on
Internet but I couldn't find anything that could clarify the meaning of the
sentence, I also looked at Wikipedia article for 佃煮【つくだに】 and I think the
strong flavor of the food is the key here.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2014-09-07T00:57:35.353
18589
2022-03-23T19:36:49.497
2022-03-23T19:36:49.497
30454
4604
question
translation meaning
Meaning and translation of 「佃煮にするほど」
The "large amount" is the key here, and the flavor of 佃煮 is not important. 佃煮
is a kind of preservative food, and it is made when we have too much food.

So "佃煮にするほどあった" here means "there were too many (Japanese expressions) which I
couldn't digest/handle for now".

But this idiom is rare. The more common ways to metaphorically say "there are
too many something (which are not particularly important)", are 「○○は星の数ほどある」,
「○○は掃いて捨てるほどある」, 「○○は腐るほどある」 etc.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-09-07T03:29:40.583
18590
2014-09-07T03:36:48.010
2014-09-07T03:36:48.010
5010
5010
18589
answer