～代わりに・～に代わって: "Instead of ○○"

Introduction

Today, instead of having a grammar lesson, we're going to just have fun instead! Wahoooooo!

Unfortunately, that's just the opening tag that uses a translation of today's grammar. This is, indeed, a grammar lesson. But who says it can't also be fun!?

I won't be accepting any comments that say otherwise, and—

All about かわいい's fun cousin, 「代かわり」

What? No, those two words aren't related...

Today, you'll learn how to express a very important grammatical concept in Japanese: "X instead of Y." We'll be doing this with the help of a couple familiar pieces of grammar, and the noun 代かわり, derived from the verb 代かわる ("to replace; to substitute; to succeed").

More specifically we'll be dealing with two distinct patterns: ～代かわりに, and ～に代かわって. Let's tackle them both in turn, starting with ～代わりに and its three main usages.