Great lesson. I haven’t been exposed to dokoroka yet. Explainations in the PDF were very helpful. Is there a corrolation between dokoroka and the tokoro that was in (lower intermediate #8)? Like, they are opposites?

I had to listen a little closer to grasp the other grammar point of the auxilary verb garu…that’s is attached to talk about the appearance of another person.
Is that kind of like -sou? Takasou, Samusou (from beginner lesson #147)
Tsuyogaru Tsuyosou would not work? (Sounds strange).

I so enjoy these lessons. Keeping up the best I can!
Thank You
Steve

thanks for an interesting lesson! as for dokoroka, i have never heard it in actual conversation but I did come across it in my grammar studying (was in the Unicom 文法 book for ２級 JLPT). It was initially a bit confusing to me because in that book they broke down “dokoroka” into having *two* possible usages, and since the book was in all Japanese it was a bit difficult to figure out the rough English equivalent of the 2nd type of usage. The 1st one the Unicom book described was easy to understand and basically translates to “far from (something)” or “on the contrary”, as exemplified in this lesson (as in, “far from being healthy, he’s actually not..”). The 2nd meaning described in the book was a bit more difficult to translate, but after thinking about it a bit it seems to have the English equivalent of “not to mention” (in the positive sense) or “let alone” (in the negative sense). For example “Being busy, I don’t even have time to watch TV, let alone go on a trip” could be translated as “忙しくて、旅行するどころか、テレビを見るひまさえない。” Another example: “こんなに成績が悪いと、就職どころか卒業も危ない。”With my grades this bad, graduating, not to mention finding a job will be doubtful”.

Anyways, this just my own interpretation, if i got this wrong, someone please correct me!

>「こんなに成績が悪いと、就職どころか卒業も危ない。」
I notice アニタさん has reversed the order the two clauses when translating into english (both her examples), while Markyさん has not.

Fortunely it’s covered in ‘A dictionary of intermediate japanese grammar’, bought at huge expense & hardly used. It states 4 types based on the Affirmative or Negative predicates:

“In S1 dokoroka S2, the distribution of affirmative/negative predicates is as follows:

(Affirmative) dokoroka (Affirmative); - dokoroka = ‘not just; even’
(Affirmative) dokoroka (Negative); - dokoroka = ‘far from’
(Negative) dokoroka (Affirmative); - dokoroka = ‘far from’
(Negative) dokoroka (Negative); - dokoroka = ‘not just; even’ ”

In the first and fourth examples, the english is ‘Not just S1, even S2′
In the second and third examples, the english is ‘Far from S1, on the contary, S2′

私は「どころか」と「～がる」という文法は聞いたことがあるけど、自分の話でまだ使わなかった。ですから、紹介ありがとう！

実はポッドキャストで「～がる」の説明が出たら、「この表現がよく聴こえるのはどこかしら？」について熱心に考えて．．．結局、思い出した。

ちょっと恥ずかしいことですけど (sort of along the lines of admitting to listening to N’SYC)、SMAPが歌う「世界に一つだけの花」です： (see the ~garu in the last line of the lyrics below?)

それなのに　僕ら人間は
どうしてこうも比べたがる？
一人一人違うのに　その中で
一番になりたがる?

ミシェルさん、あの歌は私が歌えると思いますがカラオケのサウンドトラックを持たない。でも「夜空ノムコウ」と「らいおんハート」を持ってる。

三番のビデオは面白くて楽しかったです。よくできましたね。