～うちに・～間に・～中: "While"

Introduction

It's your very first lesson in the Jungle of Tenacity! I bet you thought these would be the same old grammar lessons, but you're wrong. From now on, everything is very arbitrarily slightly harder! From now on, everything is spicy!

Okay, not really. But from this region onwards, there will start to be an abundance of grammar points that are similar to others, requiring careful attention in order to distinguish them properly from their seemingly synonymous friends.

Anyways, to kick off this region, I have a very cool lesson covering a very cool grammar point: ～うちに (plus a couple of bonus points!). Let's get into it!

Grammar lessons! Grammar lessons! Get 'em while they're hot!

構成こうせい

• 

  Present tense casual form verb/い-adjective/ている form verbうちに

• 

  な-adjective(な)/noun(の)うちに

  Example:
  → マイクが寝ねているうちに、洗あらい物ものを全部ぜんぶやった。
  ”I did all the dishes while Mike was sleeping.”

～うちに usually gets translated as "while", but really, うちに refers to an undefined period of time, where a given state remains unchanged. This may seem unnecessarily complicated, but you'll see why this is actually an important distinction when we start to compare ～うちに to some of its friends.

うちに follows the pattern 「Xうちに, Y」, where "X" is a time period or state, and "Y" is something that happens within said time period/state. (If this sounds similar to 〜間あいだに, you're not wrong, but we'll touch on that later.)

～うちに tends to be used in two main types of scenarios:

• 

  When there is a good opportunity that we don't want to miss

• 

  When something occurs simultaneously with a separate action

Let's take a look at the "opportunity" type of sentence first.

Don't you dare let this opportunity (of eating warm pizza) pass by

One of the most common uses of うちに is in regard to food, and it still being hot. In this sentence, うちに attaches to 温あたたかい, to give us "while (it's) warm". Referring to our structure above, the food being warm is the "state" that うちに refers to.

The following type of sentence is also very common:

Don't forget that 召めし上あがる is the 尊敬語そんけいご (respectful language) version of 食たべる・飲のむ.

若わかいうちに ("While one is young") is another common use of うちに. Don't worry, you're still young too!

Sentences 1.1 to 1.4 are all examples where うちに is used to express that there is a chance that shouldn't be passed up.

Another common pattern that exemplifies this type of statement is 今いまのうちに:

We can also substitute に for the は particle in order to mark うち's time period/state as the topic of our sentence instead.

The difference, as usual, is that in addition to marking "While the kids are young" as the topic of discussion, は places emphasis on what comes after it: "As for while the kids are young, it can't be helped."

Now let's take a look at some examples where うちに simply says that one thing happens while another thing is happening.

Keep going while I lie down, I won't fall asleep, promise

First, うちに attaches to 喋しゃべっている, to give us "While Mike was talking", and then we go on to mention the second action that happened within the period defined by 「喋しゃべっているうちに」.

Yup, don't be surprised when うちに attaches to a negative verb! Just watch out, because for these sorts of "X happens within Y state/time-span" statements, うちに can't attach to a past tense verb.

Okay now that you've had a chance to see うちに in action, let's compare it to a similar grammar point: 〜間あいだに.

うち vs 間あいだ: Winner gets to keep the に

〜うちに and 〜間あいだに both mean "while", but there is an important difference in how they define time periods/states. If you scroll up (or have a good memory), you'll see that I mentioned how うちに designates an undefined period of time. 間あいだに, on the other hand, designates a specific period of time. This is generally how these points work, but honestly, it's another one of those times where we have some situations in which うちに・あいだに are interchangeable, and others where they aren't. Let's take a look at a couple of examples.

First up, a scenario where they aren't very interchangeable:

Because we're dealing with a very specific depiction of time in this example, うちに doesn't sound quite right.

However, in the following scenario, both are possible.

Since summer vacation usually has determined start and end dates, according to the "rules" we can't put うちに in place of 間あいだに, but people do say the following:

The difference between these two sentences is that うちに includes a nuance of opportunity. This makes 3.3 sound like "I want to go to the beach during summer vacation (nuance: before it's too late)."

There are also scenarios where one sounds much more natural than the other. For instance, the whole "Eat up while it's hot" scenario prefers うちに, because of the nuance of "doing something while you have the opportunity":

So just remember, whenever you want to emphasize that you want to do something "before the opportunity is gone/it's too late/the situation changes", you should use うちに.

間あいだに is possible here, but it doesn't include the same nuance.

But in most scenarios, we can use these two fairly interchangeably. For example, the following are acceptable:

Okay, now we'll take a break from うちに and examine 間あいだ a bit closer. Let's go!

Advanced ～間あいだ(に)

構成こうせい

• 

  Verb(ている・いる・ない)/い-adjective間あいだ(に)

• 

  な-adjective(な)/noun(の)間あいだ(に)
  Example:
  → ハムとパイナップルの間あいだにキノコが見みえます。
  "I can see a mushroom between the ham and pineapple.”

While we're on the topic, I figured now would be a good time to discuss some additional uses for ～間あいだに that we weren't able to cover in the Depths of Devotion!

We've already covered using ～間あいだに temporally. like so:

Adjective + 間あいだに tends to fall under this basic usage as well:

But did you know that 間あいだ can be used spatially as well? Check it out:

When we use 間あいだに spatially or physically, it means "in-between", and the「(noun)と(noun)の間あいだに」 pattern is very common. Here's another example:

There is also a very common expression made using 間あいだ and the こそあど word, この:

Often, この間あいだ will get shortened to こないだ in spoken Japanese:

And for a slightly advanced temporal usage that we didn't get to cover before, we can also use 間あいだに to express a span of time numerically. Like so:

For a final tidbit of temporal info, here's a common ～間あいだ pattern that uses まで:

This is the 「～までの間あいだ～」 pattern! It uses まで to create a statement along the lines of "in the period of time until X...". Useful, right? Just don't forget the の particle.

And that's it for 間あいだ! Next up, I want to introduce you to a new friend, a friend named...

～中ちゅう: Another way to say "while"?!

構成こうせい

• 

  Noun中ちゅう
  Example:
  → 仕事しごと中ちゅうはスマホを使つかいません。
  "I don't use my phone during work.”

Like I mentioned, as you work your way toward the upper ranks of Japanese grammar, you'll notice that there are many ways to say the same (or similar) thing. Luckily for us, ～中ちゅう is a bit different than ～うちに or ～間あいだに.

Instead of using verbs, adjectives, (noun)の, or (な-adjective)な, we'll simply be attaching 中ちゅう directly to a noun! How easy. How simple. How... daring.

When 中ちゅう is used as a suffix like this, it expresses "during (noun)" or "throughout (noun)". The nouns that 中ちゅう attaches to are either time nouns (e.g. 午前ごぜん) or activities that occupy a certain period of time. You'll see what I mean.

"I'm studying" was the most natural translation, but we can think of 勉強べんきょう中ちゅう as "while studying" or "currently studying". Essentially, 中ちゅう tells us that the 勉強べんきょう is currently happening; that we're in "the middle" of the 勉強べんきょう.

The second half of our sentence doesn't have to be a request either, we can follow ～中ちゅう with a whole number of things! Here's another example:

Unfortunate, indeed.

Take note that when we say that something happened within the time period denoted by 中ちゅう, it's common to add the に particle (think of how we use に with うち and 間あいだ), although it is also sometimes dropped, especially when speaking.

Another very common ～中ちゅう combo is 午前ごぜん中ちゅう, which essentially means "in the morning". Let's see it in action.

You'll also commonly see ～中ちゅう on signs outside shops:

Finally, we usually can't use 中ちゅう with verb stems (which can sometimes behave like nouns), but there are some exceptions. The common ones are:

Bonus: ちゅう vs じゅう

Sometimes when 中 is used as a prefix, it is read as じゅう, rather than ちゅう. But don't worry, there's an easy rule you can learn that explains which one you should use, always and forever... HA! As if!

No, unfortunately, as is so often the case with kanji readings, there is no concrete rule, and you will have to take many words on a case-by-case basis.

There is, however, a "trend" that we can examine as far as ちゅう and じゅう go.

じゅう tends to be used to indicate something that happens throughout the entirety of a given time period, while ちゅう tends to be used to indicate that something happens at a certain point within a given time period.

For example,

今週こんしゅう中じゅう
"Throughout the week/all week"

6.1

イベントは今週こんしゅう中じゅうやっています。

The event will take place all week.

vs

今週こんしゅう中ちゅう
"Within the week"

6.2

今週こんしゅう中ちゅうにハイキング行いきたい。

I want to go hiking sometime this week.

However, ちゅう can also be used when we want to talk about the entire span of something. This is often done in combination with 毎日まいにち or ずっと:

And some words can't take both readings of 中:

年中ねんじゅう　⭕

年中ねんちゅう　❌

So unfortunately you will have to take the majority of ちゅう vs じゅう on a case-by-case basis. But you got this! I believe in you. Just keep moving forward with your Japanese studies and let the exposure and practice hone your skills!

This concludes your first Adept article! Joy! From here on out, you can start calling yourself an "Adept", or I guess "Pandawan" if you'd like. How does it feel to be moving up the ranks of the Japanese learning hierarchy? Pretty good I'd imagine.

Anyway, ～うちに, ～間あいだに, and ～中ちゅう・じゅう are all super useful little pieces (or is it peices?) of grammar, so please do get those grammar SRS reps in!

Summary

• 

  ～うちに means "while" or "during", and is used to indicate opportunities or express that one action happens during another.

• 

  ～うちに and ～間あいだに can often be used interchangeably, but there are some situations where one is preferred over the other.

• 

  ～間あいだに can also be used spatially to indicate a physical gap.

• 

  中ちゅう・じゅう can be used as a suffix to indicate that an action is in progress. ～中ちゅう・じゅう attaches to nouns.