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Gogaku

All N3 grammar

N3

〜など/なんか/なんて

Something like… (dismissive/exclamatory)machine translation

FormationNoun + など/なんか;noun/plain-form clause + なんて

Beyond the familiar listing meaning "and so on," など and its two colloquial variants なんか・なんて also BELITTLE what comes before them: "something like…, … of all things." 私の気持ちなんか誰にも分からない (as if anyone could understand feelings like mine) — self-deprecating; 旅行に行く時間などない (I don't even have time to travel) — dismissive.

なんて can also attach to a whole clause to express surprise, exclamation, or reproach about the event itself: 嘘をつくなんて、ひどい (lying — that's awful). This is where なんて is broader than なんか — なんか only follows nouns.

Note the nuance: used about yourself it's humble (私なんか), but used about someone else or something they treasure it's contemptuous — 先生の授業なんて is a sentence that will cause offense. こそ sits at the opposite pole: it elevates ("precisely") instead of putting down ("something like"). For hard-to-believe events, なんて pairs naturally with まさか in exclamations.

Examples

Related patterns

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