せっかく・面倒・迷惑: Trouble is a’Brewin

Introduction

Effort... pain... trouble... This lesson is all about trouble and troublesome things. More specifically, we'll be looking at three common words that are used as expressions of trouble/difficulty/inconvenience, as well as what other nuances they may or may not possess!

Sound good? Great! Let's get to it.

せっかく: With great pain (and hunger... for pizza)

構成こうせい

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  せっかく(sentence)

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  せっかくの(noun)...
  Example:
  → せっかくここまで来きたから、最後さいごまで行いこう。
  "We've gone through the trouble to come all this way, so let's go to the end.”

First up is 折角せっかく. This handy word (which is usually written in hiragana), means something like "with great pains; with trouble; long-awaited; special". In reality, these often end up being unnatural translations for something that is much more subtle in the Japanese, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.