は＝少なくても？

[The7thSamurai]

Can anyone here go into more detail about は being used to mean 最低 or 少なくても?

I was recently told that 十人は死んだ meant "at least 10 people have died".

Another example:
郊外に家があるので、家から会社まで片道２時間はかか るんです。
Does this mean "I live out in the suburbs so it take at least 2 hours each way to get from home to work."?

And is there any particular nuance here?

My textbook also has this sentence:

２年もフランス語を勉強したのだから、挨拶ぐらいはで きるだろう。

So I assume this little grammatical structure is not limited to numbers. "He's studied French for as long as two years so he should at least be able to introduce himself". Would you always have to use ぐらい・くらい for non-numbers?

E.g. 今日ずっと家にいたから、片付けるくらいはしたべきだ ったよ
You were home all day so you should have at least tidied up.

 

[Charles Barkley]

In the くらい case, くらい is the part that holds the meaning 'at least.' Wa in that sentence, I believe, would be optional.

If you have The Dictionary of Intermediate Grammar, this is in the entry on Kurai. Another example sentence: 私は料理は下手ですが、ご飯くらい炊けます。 ...I can at least cook rice.

Where did you hear this about wa? Obviously we're going to have to wait for someone better than us to weigh in, but I have just never heard it before...It could be that in the first example, one is just expressing that 10 people have died, not that the amount of people that died was 10, so it could be possible that more people have also died, but that simply wasn't talked about.

 

[Elizabeth]

Can anyone here go into more detail about は being used to mean 最低 or 少なくても?
I was recently told that 十人は死んだ meant "at least 10 people have died".

The closest association I can make right now are these two examples. And they are still thinking in English as opposed to Japanese 最低 or 少なくても. :

[死者は出なかった」 ("At least") No one died (Implying there may have been injuries).

「死者が出なかった」 No one died. A narrow, to the point statement. Nothing on numbers of possible wounded is hinted at or can be construed.

 

[JimmySeal]

People could write (and have written) entire books on the nuances of は. I don't feel that this is the kind of thing that can be satisfactorily explained. It's simply something that you get a feel for after reading and listening a lot.

 

[The7thSamurai]

My teacher, who is a native Japanese, definately stressed it to mean 'at least'. Here's another example from my text:

毎日４時間も勉強したのだから、明日のテストでは（最低）７０点ぐらいは取れるだろう。

He said that even without 最低 it still expresses "at least". Here are some example sentences from alc.co.jp

# 飛行機の切符ぐらいは僕に買わせてくれ。
At least let me buy you an airline ticket.

# 壁にボールを投げてくっ付かなくても、跡ぐらいは残る。
If the ball does not stick to the wall, it will at least leave a mark.

This one uses 少なくても:
あらまー！少なくとも1時間はかかったでしょう！
Oh, no! I bet it took you at least an hour!

This one doesn't:
どのくらい時間かかると思ってるんだよ。8時間はかかるぞ。
How many hours do you think it will take? It will be 8 hours at least.

Here's another one that has been translated as "at least" without using 少なくても or 最低:
# 「何日くらいで退院できますか？」「1週間はむりですあ ﾋ」
"How soon can I be released from the hospital?" "You have to spend at least seven days here."
Most of them, however, do use either 少なくても or 最低. I'd just like to know what the nuance is with and without.

 

[Elizabeth]

My teacher, who is a native Japanese, definately stressed it to mean 'at least'. Here's another example from my text:

毎日４時間も勉強したのだから、明日のテストでは（最低）７０点ぐらいは取れるだろう。

He said that even without 最低 it still expresses "at least". Here are some example sentences from alc.co.jp

# 飛行機の切符ぐらいは僕に買わせてくれ。
At least let me buy you an airline ticket.

# 壁にボールを投げてくっ付かなくても、跡ぐらいは残る。
If the ball does not stick to the wall, it will at least leave a mark.

This one uses 少なくても:
あらまー！少なくとも1時間はかかったでしょう！
Oh, no! I bet it took you at least an hour!

This one doesn't:
どのくらい時間かかると思ってるんだよ。8時間はかかるぞ。
How many hours do you think it will take? It will be 8 hours at least.

Here's another one that has been translated as "at least" without using 少なくても or 最低:
# 「何日くらいで退院できますか？」「1週間はむりですあ ﾋ」
"How soon can I be released from the hospital?" "You have to spend at least seven days here."
Most of them, however, do use either 少なくても or 最低. I'd just like to know what the nuance is with and without.

I don't have time to discuss the nuance now, but I'm confused since no one is disputing ぐらい can be "at least".

 

[The7thSamurai]

I don't have time to discuss the nuance now, but I'm confused since no one is disputing ぐらい can be "at least".

Now I'm confused. Who was disputing this?

Q: どのくらい時間かかると思ってるんだよ。
A: 8時間はかかるぞ。

And this answer was still translated to mean "at least 8 hours".

Actually one clue is that くらい was used in the question (どのくらい) so maybe ８時間くらいは is implied by only only saying ８時間は. In other words, to express "at least" you have to use either 少なくても～は or 最低～は or くらいは. But 少なくても、最低 and くらい being optional if the previous question asked "at least how many/how long...", thus reducing "at least" down to simply は.

Just thinking out loud.

 

[JimmySeal]

You're thinking in English again.

Don't Do The Language, BE The Language | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time

 

[epigene]

My apologies for not having much time to elaborate, but this use of "wa" is emphatic affirmation or negation of whatever precedes it. So, it can be translated into "at least" in this situation but into others in other cases.

HTH!

 

[Elizabeth]

My apologies for not having much time to elaborate, but this use of "wa" is emphatic affirmation or negation of whatever precedes it. So, it can be translated into "at least" in this situation but into others in other cases.
HTH!

Yes, I also didn't have the time to read through Bucko's earlier examples. But it can be thought of very similarly to my first example of [死者は出なかった」 = ("At least") No one died vs. 「死者が出なかった」 = No one died.

To make it even more interesting, 少なくとも can have the connotation both of qualifying what has gone before (downplaying the negative aspect of a situation) OR providing a minimum lowest possible assessment.