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Hi everyone. I posted a sentence on Lang-8 and got a somewhat confusing correction:
My sentence: 自分で日本語を勉強にくいです。 (It is difficult to study Japanese by oneself)
Correction: 自分で日本語を勉強するのは難しいです
Is there a grammatical difference between using -にくい and 難しいです to indicate “difficult to…”? The person correcting couldn’t explain other than “Usually Japanese people say it this way”. Is it just stylistic?
Thanks for any help you can offer!
AnonymousReally no difference in connotation, but にくい is rarely used with the exception of 分かりにくい・分かりやすい
AnonymousYour first sentence might be better if it was 独学はしにくいです。にくいis not a verb so you do not use the を particle. It is an adjective – just like in English where you say something is hard to do, but you’re not actually doing anything.
The correction you received is perfectly fine.
It’s an auxiliary adjective – it always attaches to a verb. =) So yah, が勉強しにくい not just を勉強にくい
It’s often hard to tell just what correcters are thinking…
@Bbvoncrum: that’s interesting, and would certainly make things easier…
@Tsetycoon: Couldn’t you also write it as - 独学は難しいです (since 難しい is also an adjective)? If so, does it make a significant difference from the しにくい version?
@Joel: I’m not quite sure I understand the distinction between the が and を version you’re using…could you explain it a little more?
Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the help!
The usage of にくい is “V-stem+にくい” , so I’ve inserted a し – that is, the stem of する. The resulting assemblage is an い-adjective, though, so rather than an “～は～をverb” structure, it’s now a “～は～がadjectiveです” structure.
Anonymous独学はしにくいです – Self-study is difficult to do.
独学は難しいです – Self-study is difficult.
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