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I've noticed that some of my Japanese friends with fluent but imperfect
English often say "too _adjective_ " when a native English speaker would say
just "very _adjective_ ".

(I am asking about "too" in the sense "too big", not as in "me too")

Does this reveal that English makes a distinguish that Japanese doesn't make
or one which Japanese speakers would find too subtle?

How would I unambiguously express each in Japanese?
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2011-06-13T05:55:51.207
1007
2011-06-15T10:41:45.927
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question
word-choice translation adverbs
Can the qualifiers "very" and "too" be expressed unambiguously in Japanese?
I've always heard that "very" is 「とても」 (「とても美味しい」), whereas "too" is 「～過ぎ」
(「大き過ぎ」).
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2011-06-13T06:09:00.113
1009
2011-06-13T06:09:00.113
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1007
answer
Not only "too [big]" and "very [big]", but I have also very often heard "so
[big]" added to the mix of confusion by semi-conversational Japanese (not sure
it's related, but it sure sounds like it).

A potential lead for an explanation might be in the nuance of 「〜すぎ」in
Japanese: it is generally more neutral than "too ~" in English. In fact, it is
often **colloquially** used as a synonym for "very ~" (when used with a
positive adjective):

美味しすぎ！ → This is _really_ good! (with positive, not negative, nuance) [col.]

When quizzed about that, Japanese coworkers agreed that, in their mind, there
wasn't such a strong difference between "too ~"/"so ~"/"very ~"... possibly
because of the softer divide between 「〜すぎ」 and 「とても」. I doubt there is a
stronger grammatical explanation for this (but would love to hear if there
is).
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2011-06-13T08:19:01.570
1015
2011-06-15T10:41:45.927
2011-06-15T10:41:45.927
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answer