～というか～というか: "How should I put it..."

Introduction

This lesson is important, or should I say... dignified. Or should I say, elegant? I'm not really sure what to say about it, actually! It's hard to describe...

And that's what this lesson's all about!

〜というか〜というか: It's cool, or like... suave or something

構成こうせい

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  XというかYというか
  (X and Y = Verb/い-adjective/な-adjective/noun)

  Example:
  → あの人ひとはいつも暇ひまというか、怠なまけ者ものというか、仕事しごとしているのを見みたことない。
  "I'm not sure if that person is just free or lazy, but I've never seen them do any work.”

Just like in your first N2 lesson, here's a brief overview of this grammar point, all in Japanese!

日本語にほんご文法ぶんぽう説明せつめい

• 

  ～という言いい方かたもできるし、他ほかの～という言いい方かたもできる。

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  話はなし手てが、ある状況じょうきょう・事態じたい・人ひとなどをどう表現ひょうげんすればいいか分わからない時ときによく使つかう。

Heck yeah, you read all of that like a pro! ... You definitely read it this time, right?

Well, in case you skipped some of it again because you had some delicious choco-chip cookies in the oven, I'll give you the usual English explanation as well...

Overview

The 〜というか〜というか pattern is most commonly used when the speaker isn't quite sure how to express something about a situation, person, place, etc. It allows you to create a less precise and more general statement, in the hopes of giving the listener at least some idea of how you feel. (Even if you can't quite put it into words.)

Alternatively, 〜というか〜というか can be used when you know exactly how you feel about something, but want to avoid being too direct. Like if you said, "Recently Mike has been, how should I put it, a bit tired? Or maybe stressed?", when what you really want to say is that "Mike is lazy".

It's also possible to use just one というか, and create an "It's more X, than Y" type statement. For this lesson, we'll separate this usage and pin a nice ② on it. Check it out right after usage ①! It's nice when the numbers go in order, isn't it?

In English

〜というか〜というか has various possible translations, depending on the scenario. Some common ones are "I'm not sure if X or Y, but...", and "X is Y, or rather..., or rather...". You'll also often see "How should I put it" added to translations as an approximation of というか's unsureness.

Similar Grammar

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  〜か〜か (Elementary #34)

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  〜というより (Adept #151)

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  〜むしろ (Adept #151)

Other forms

というか can be shortened to っていうか or ってか in casual situations.

Politeness

〜というか〜というか is most commonly used in casual and polite scenarios. It isn't common in formal ones.

例文れいぶん ① 〜というか x2

というか can attach to verbs, adjectives, or nouns, with impunity! You can also mix them up and go「(verb)というか(noun)というか」 for example, but keep in mind that whatever you put before というか should belong in the same category.

Let's take a look at some examples featuring various parts of speech!

Ah yes, the perfect 〜というか〜というか sentence. The speaker isn't exactly sure what's going on with Mr. Kato, but what they do know is that they don't look like they're focused, and the speaker uses というか to list a couple possibilities as to why this might be the case.

In this case, the speaker's not quite sure how to describe the town in question, so they offer up three different attributes, and use というか to indicate that they're being imprecise with their description.

The speaker's not quite sure how to describe giraffes (they are certainly a unique animal). Maybe they really think giraffes are weird, and they're using というか to beat around the bush a bit, or maybe they really just don't know how to describe them.

It's also possible to end our statement with というか. This is done when the context of the sentence allows for any omitted information to be implied. Here's an example:

In this case, the speaker is essentially saying that it's awkward to ask about and/or discuss a person's age, which is easy enough to infer from the first half of this sentence, so they can safely omit the rest. This also allows the speaker to be even less direct, and even more vague. Politeness via vague statements is, as you likely already know, very Japanese.

That's all for this first usage! Let me give you more examples to go through on your own:

例文れいぶん ②: というか x1

Our second usage now involves merely one というか, and is very similar to というより, which we covered in the N3 region (but let's leave their differences in the compare and contrast section.)

This usage of というか allows us to express that "Moreso than X, it's Y". Like so:

Here, というか indicates that it's more accurate to say that it hurts, rather than that it's simply cold.

Switching up the translation a little bit, here the speaker is using というか to create a bit of a comedic hyperbole, saying that it's more accurate to say that they can't live without mitarashi dango, rather than simply saying that they like it. To be honest, I get it. The stuff is mad good.

Lastly, you'll sometimes see というか (or in this case, the more casual ってか), used to reword a statement to be more assertive. Like so:

Compare and contrast with similar grammar

As I mentioned earlier, there are three grammar points that are similar to today's lesson: 〜か〜か, 〜というより, and 〜むしろ. Let's check out each of their differences in turn, starting with...

～というか～というか vs ～か～か

～というか～というか is somewhat similar to the ～か～か pattern, which can be used to list alternatives. Check it:

The biggest difference here is that か is used to express options when something isn't decided, such as when there are multiple possibilities, and the speaker isn't sure which one they will choose, etc.

On the other hand, ～というか～というか is used when the speaker is unsure about how to express something.

So if you said:

It sounds like you're having some weird dish that you're not quite sure how to describe. While this isn't exactly unnatural, it might only make sense in that very specific situation!

～というか vs ～というより and むしろ

When it comes to expressing "Rather than X, it's Y", ～というか and ～というより are very similar! In fact, the only real difference is that ～というか sounds a bit more casual.

Now, things are a bit different when it comes to むしろ. Indeed, むしろ can also be used to rephrase or clarify a piece of info, but it tends to be used when there's more of a gap between expectation and reality. It also puts more emphasis on the new, unexpected information.

In the ～というか sentence, the gap between expectation and reality is quite small (warm → hot), while the gap is quite large in the むしろ sentence (warm → cold).

Another N2 lesson down, your second one in fact. That means two N2 lessons down. And if you do another two, two + two is four. So... N4? I'm confused. What are we talking about?

Summary

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  The ～というか～というか pattern is used when the speaker isn't sure how to accurately describe a situation/a thing/a person/etc. Or, when they want to purposefully describe something vaguely.

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  Common translations of ～というか～というか are "I'm not sure if X or Y, but...", and "X is Y, or rather..., or "rather...".

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  ～というか～というか is most commonly used in casual and polite scenarios.

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  ～というか～というか can be shortened to ていうか or ってか.

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  Verbs, い-adjectives, な-adjectives, and nouns can attach to というか.

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  A singular ～というか can be used to express that "It's more X, rather than Y".