I am much more familiar with べつに and its usage (bc Haikyuu!), and I have recently become acquainted with あまり here on renshuu... but I'm still very confused at the difference between the two. To me, they almost seem to be used the same way. 😅 I'm assuming there's some nuance that I am missing. Are they different parts of speech? I can't find anything online comparing the two words, so I'm wondering if they're not as similar as I understand them to be. 🤔
別に (べつに) is more like showing "indifference" to something. It's kinda like saying it's "kinda okay", I think. Not stating outright negative feelings about something, but not being positive. "別にいいけど…" is perhaps a good example.
あまり on the other hand I'm pretty sure is close to a "not really", as in you don't really do something, paired with a negative-form verb. "あまり泳ぎません。" There are other definitions of あまり as well that I'm not familiar with yet, so this isn't a complete explanation by any means.
Well even I was like you not understanding the difference between them and for me あまり was way more tough. When you use amari you convert the sentence in negative in BOTH English and japanese. And for converting you need to know how the use the NEGATIVE form of verbs and adjectives, which you will get to later on. Dont make haste but I will just give you a brief. Patience is the key! To make adjectives ( two categories which are い-adjectives and な-adj ) い-adjectives are the easiest for me. この てんぷら は あまり おいしくない です。 Here the underlined word is the negative of tasty ( Oishiiおいしい) To make an i-adjective negative remove the i from the last letter and just add くない. More examples : あたらしい(new)＝あたらしくない (you can see the last i is removed and we get NOT new) ちいさい(Small)＝ちいさくない ( not small )
あまり on the other hand come from 余り. And that kanji mean "rest, left over" kinda.
So, jumping a few step, 別に is a bit like "No it's different", "I have a different feeling about that" if you want the rough kanji meaning. While あまり is more like "not too much" because of that "rest, left over" root meaning.
別においしくないです -> It's not like it's good
あまりおいしくないです -> It's not that good/It's not really good
With あまり, you kinda have a connotation of quantity while with 別に, it simply mean "different". That does not cover everything but if you keep that in mind, it should help a bit maybe for other case.
