48732
> 日本の小学校は、２０２０年度 **までに** 英語の授業を **少しずつ** 増やすことになっています。  
>  Japanese primary schools are expected to increase English classes gradually
> by 2020.

I'm confused about the combination of までに (by) with 少しずつ (little by little) .
The direct English translation makes no sense. You can't do something 'little
by little' **by** a certain time. I think the only way I could understand this
is "they have until 2020 to start increasing the number of English lessons'.

You can do something 'little by little' **until** a certain time.

You could also say something like 'expected to increase classes little by
little until they reach two hours a week by 2020'

So I think my question is why までに rather than just まで? What does this sentence
actually mean?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-25T09:34:54.910
48726
2017-06-25T13:53:31.560
7944
question
grammar particle-まで
How does までに work with 少しずつ
The example sentence means that they will start to work on the task of
gradually increasing English classes at a certain point of time within a
period from now until 2020. In other words, they won't necessarily do it
immediately and steadily.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-25T10:40:33.750
48728
2017-06-25T10:40:33.750
4092
48726
answer
It's interesting to see how まで（に）seems to confuse learners of Japanese as much
as the distinction betwenn "by" and "until" confuses the Japanese when they
learn English.

To expand slighly on user4092's explanation, までに simply expresses a period
between now and a defined future point in time. In this sentence, the 少しずつ
simply describes how things will be done during that period.

The point of view adopted is that of the end result: " **by** the time the
2020 school year comes around, the number of English classes in primary
schools will have increased compared to now. The process of increasing them
will proceed **little by little** between now and then."

Addendum: the above explanation is simply an illustration of the viewpoint
adopted when までに is used, not a proper translation. Your reading of 増やす as
"will increase" is correct. The ことになっています here simply expresses that
everything preceding it is fact. Although more awkward in terms of English, a
translation closer to the structure of the Japanese would be something like:

> _It has been decided that_ primary schools in Japan are going to increase
> English classes gradually **between now and the 2020 school year**.

where the part in italics corresponds to ことになっています, and the part in bold is
までに.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-25T11:26:49.913
48732
2017-06-25T13:53:31.560
2017-06-25T13:53:31.560
22424
22424
48726
answer