Rather than A
This is usually followed by a statement that is considered better or more accurate than A.
16
弟は昨日の試験に落ちた。頭がよくないと言うより全然勉強しなかったせいだ。
My little brother failed the exam yesterday. Rather than saying that he is not smart, it is because he did not study at all.
10
それは部屋というよりはむしろ広間だ。
It is a hall rather than a room.
15
ジョンは天才というより努力家だ。
John is not so much a genius as a hard worker.
18
あの少女は美しいと言うよりはむしろ可愛い。
That girl is more cute than beautiful.
10
この本は為になると言うよりも害になる。
This book will do more harm than good.
8
あの女性は見栄っ張りというよりもむしろ自尊心が強い。
That woman is proud rather than vain.
Getting the sentences
Construction
(Elements in parentheses are optional.)
Basic Examples:
病気というより調子がちょっとおかしい (rather than 'sick,' 'under the weather')
五月蝿いというより元気 (rather than 'loud,' 'energetic')
行きたくないというより都合が悪い (rather than saying I don't want to go, the circumstances aren't great...)
簡単というより複雑じゃない ('uncomplicated' rather than 'easy')
Where this grammar is found
User notes
RemiJP
Level: 154
(21 days ago)
I've seen this used at the start of sentences when the less accurate statement has already been said previously. This could be translated as something like "Or rather," "More accurately," "Actually," etc.
「私田舎に住んでたから…」
「田舎って…？」
「というより根無し草ね」
(Roughly:
"It's because I've lived in the countryside..."
"The countryside...?"
"Or, it's more like I'm a person with no roots." )
0
Stupie
Level: 86
(9 months ago)
လို့ဆိုတာထက်
- အရှေ့ကအခြေနေထက် အနောက်က အခြေနေကပိုမှန်တယ်
- တုံးတယ်ဆိုတာထက် နားမလည်တာ / လှတယ်ဆိုတာထက် ချစ်ဖို့ကောင်းတာ
- တုံးတယ်ဆိုတာထက် နားမလည်တာ / လှတယ်ဆိုတာထက် ချစ်ဖို့ကောင်းတာ
0
mysticfive
Level: 1604
(13 years ago)
this is often used when wanting to be politic, or searching for a better/more descriptive word for what's being described.
2
Discussion about this grammar
