Practicing Too Much
“If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.” - Mark Twain
Well, actually, there’s no such thing as too much practice, right? If you don’t practice until something is obvious, how will you know it? Also, just as a reminder, here’s the rules for both verbs and adjectives (hopefully you know both already, and this is just one of those “psshhh, I don’t need that!” reminders).
dict.stem + すぎる
いadj.stem + すぎる
なadj.stem + すぎる
The next step, I think, would be to make normal sentences (minus すぎる) using verbs and adjectives. This is something you should already know, and it also gets you 70-80% of the way there. Add in your knowledge of how to convert these adjectives and verbs to すぎる form and you have yourself 99% knowledge, without even knowing it. We’ll take things step by step though, just to make sure you have it down solidly. Let’s look at some boring old regular examples:
aラーメン を たべます
I will eat ramen
aオレンジジュース を のみます
I will drink orange juice
aこの ゲーム は たかい です
This game is expensive
aボビーさん は しずか です
Bobby Is quiet
These example sentences are all pretty standard, I think. Now let’s add すぎる to the mix. Based on what you see, how would you convert the above sentences to すぎる sentences? Also, what would the translations be?
aラーメン を たべすぎる
I will eat too much ramen
aオレンジジュース を のみすぎる
I will drink too much orange juice
aこの ゲーム は たかすぎる
This game is too expensive
aボビーさん は しずかすぎる
Bobby is too quiet
Now take a look at the following words. Can you use these words to make a すぎる sentence? I’ll provide example answers as well, to help you out (but try not to peek!).
せかい
aせかい は たいへん すぎる
The world is too tough/difficult
へや
aへや は せますぎる
The room is too tight/small
わたし
aわたし は かわいすぎる
I am too cute (P.S. don’t ever say this!)
かれ の かお
aかれ の かお は 大きすぎる
His face is too big
かぜ
aかぜ は つよすぎる
The wind is too strong
すし
aすし を たべすぎる
I will eat too much sushi
One thing you might have noticed, especially with the verbs, is that すぎる would work better if you were to talk about something in the past tense… as in, “I ate too much” rather than “I will eat too much.” It’s harder to predict you will eat too much, but it’s easy (and more common) to say you did eat too much. With adjectives it’s easier to do things in present/future tense, because something is what it is. Still, past tense would be useful with both.
We’re going to continue practicing, but now we’re going to add in past tense すぎる (or should I say すぎた?).