〜ぶり（に）

〜ぶりに attaches to a length of time to say "after that long a gap, the thing has finally happened again": 十年ぶりに会った (met again for the first time in ten years). The familiar greeting お久しぶりです (long time no see), which you know from N5, is this very pattern in a fixed form.

The core point: the number before ぶり is the LENGTH of the gap, not a point in time — 三日ぶりの雨 means it hadn't rained for the past three days and now it finally has again. Along with that comes the speaker's feeling that the gap was a long one. At the end of a sentence you can use 〜ぶりだ: 家族に会うのは二年ぶりです.

Don't confuse it with 〜後で, which marks plain "after" sequence: 二年後 is "two years after (some point in time)," while 二年ぶり always implies "for the past two years it did NOT happen, and now it's recurring for the first time." Compared with 〜たびに (every time something repeats), ぶりに is about ONE recurrence after a long pause.

Examples

• 十年(じゅうねん)ぶりに高校(こうこう)の友達(ともだち)に会(あ)いました。

  I met a friend from high school again for the first time in ten years.

• 一週間(いっしゅうかん)ぶりの雨(あめ)で、庭(にわ)の花(はな)が元気(げんき)になった。

  Thanks to the first rain in a week, the flowers in the garden perked up again.

• 国(くに)の家族(かぞく)に会(あ)うのは二年(にねん)ぶりです。

  It's been two years since I last saw my family back home.

Related patterns

• 〜たび（に）