95315
Reading the first volume of 僕の愛したジークフリーデ, by Matsuyama Takeshi, I found this
sentence:

> それは、これまでとは明らかに違う怒りだった。単なる激怒や怒声とも違う、ともすれば子供じみた、感情そのままの発露

To give some context, the angry character (A) is dueling with another (B);
originally, the duel was due in the past to decide who was to be the new
commander of the royal knights, then chaos ensued, B was branded as traitor
and (maybe due to that) the duel didn't happen. Then in this occasion B asks A
why the duel, since B - being branded as traitor - can't be the new commander
anymore. A gets angry, and replies 私がそんなもののを欲しがると思うんですか……ッ！？.

I initially thought that ともすれば meant something like "rather", like "It wasn't
just rage, **rather** it was a childish expression of emotion", but then I
[found](https://japanesetest4you.com/flashcard/learn-
jlpt-n1-grammar-%E3%81%A8%E3%82%82%E3%81%99%E3%82%8C%E3%81%B0-tomo-sureba/),
ともすれば means "apt to; prone to"; can ともすれば also mean "rather"? Should I read
that line like "It wasn't just rage, it was a expression of emotion prone to
be childish" (which in translation I think would be more natural as just "a
childish expression")? Or there is something else I'm missing?

I also found
[this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/62523/%E3%81%A8%E3%82%82%E3%81%99%E3%82%8C%E3%81%B0%EF%BD%9E-%E3%81%A8%E3%82%82%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B%E3%81%A8%EF%BD%9E-a-
tendency-to-prone-to-or-cause-and-effect) answer, but it doesn't really help.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-07-07T10:03:24.213
95308
2022-07-08T16:55:50.360
2022-07-07T19:02:12.010
30454
35362
question
grammar
Meaning of ともすれば
I think the explanation you are looking for is actually in that answer you
linked, but I see your struggle and I understand why this word's exact
meanings are difficult to grasp, so I am going to give it another crack.
Adverbs are hard. A lot of adverbs don't have good equivalents in other
languages and are hard to explain cross-linguistically. And ともすれば is
definitely one of them. The English definitions given by bilingual English
Japanese dictionaries are useless in this case, because the "apt to, liable
to, prone to" definition is nothing if not confusing. But I'd like to draw
your attention to what @naruto says here:

> In your examples, ともすれば is effectively weakening the meaning of そうになる

In some cases ともすれば effectively translates as "sometimes" "in some cases"
"tend to" or even "may" "maybe" "perhaps". What really complicates the issue
here is ともすれば often co-occurs with そう and がち. For example:

> 現代では忘れられる  
>  Nowadays it is forgotten (by people)

> 現代では忘れられがち  
>  Nowadays it is easy to get forgotten (by people)

> 現代ではともすれば忘れられがち  
>  Nowadays it sometimes tends to be forgotten (by people)

As you can see, all these terms are hedge words that weaken the assertion made
in the statement. I would render your sentence something like this:

> 単なる激怒や怒声とも違う、ともすれば子供じみた感情そのままの発露  
>  It was not simply fury or angry shouting either, **perhaps** just giving
> vent to childish emotion.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-07-08T05:51:04.507
95315
2022-07-08T16:55:50.360
2022-07-08T16:55:50.360
30454
30454
95308
answer