〜ほど

At N4 you got used to ほど in negative sentences meaning "not as… as"; at N3, ほど appears in AFFIRMATIVE sentences meaning "to the point that": it gives an extreme example to convey the degree of something. 死ぬほど疲れた (so tired I could die), 泣きたいほどうれしかった (so happy I wanted to cry). Before ほど comes a verb in the dictionary form or a noun.

The example before ほど is usually hyperbole, not real — nobody actually dies; it's just a yardstick for the feeling. A familiar set phrase: 山ほど (a mountain of): 山ほど宿題がある.

くらい also expresses degree and can replace ほど in many sentences, but the nuances differ: ほど leans toward HIGH, extreme degrees; くらい is often used for low degrees, making light of things ("only about that much"). ほど also appears in the proportional pattern 〜ば〜ほど (the more… the more…) — a separate N3 grammar point.

Examples

• 今日(きょう)は死(し)ぬほど疲(つか)れました。

  Today I'm so tired I could die.

• 泣(な)きたいほどうれしかったです。

  I was so happy I wanted to cry.

• 机(つくえ)の上(うえ)に山(やま)ほど宿題(しゅくだい)があります。

  There's a mountain of homework on my desk.

Related patterns

• 〜くらい／ぐらい
• 〜ば〜ほど
• 〜は〜くらいです