てたまらない / てしかたがない Japanese Grammar Lesson
Grammar Type: Phrase
Essential Meaning: Unbearably X / Be dying to do X
Construction:
- い-Adjective Stem + くてだまらない
- E.g. 寒くてたまらない [Unbearably cold]
- な-Adjective Stem + でたまらない
- E.g. 不便でたまらない [Unbearably inconvenient]
Notes:
- てたまらない indicates that some situation is unbearable for the speaker (either in a positive or negative way). てたまらない derives from the verb たまる, which means “To stand” or “To endure“. So てたまらない expression can be roughly translated as ”It’s so ADJECTIVE that I can’t stand it” (e.g. “This book is so boring that I can’t stand it.“) The adjective that precedes てたまらない should refer to some human emotion; A sentence such as “This grass is so green that I can’t stand it.” would be awkward in Japanese because the sentence does not refer to an adjective of human emotion.
- E.g. 今日は暑くてたまらない。[It’s so hot that I can’t stand it.]
- Note that てたまらない can NOT be inverted to say something to the effect of “This book is so interesting I CAN stand it!“. In other words てたまらない is only usable with something unbearable, either in a good way or a bad way.
- E.g. この本はおもしろくてたまらない。[This book is so interesting I can’t stand it.] This situation is unbearable in a good way.
- E.g. 父が死んで悲しくてたまりません。[My father died, and I’m so sad that I can’t stand it.] This situation is unbearable in a bad way.
- てたまらない can generally be interchanged with て仕方がない. The main differences are:
- (1) てたまらない is slightly more emotionally-charged that て仕方がない.
- E.g. この本はおもしろくてたまらない。[This book is so interesting I can’t stand it.]
- E.g. この本はおもしろくて仕方がない。[This book is so interesting that I can’t contain myself.] This sentence basically means the same thing as the preceding sentence.
- (2) If 仕方がない is preceded by ても / でも, it can NOT be interchanged with てたまらない. In other words, てたまらない is incompatible with ても / でも.
- E.g. そんな本は読んでも仕方がない。[Even if I read that kind of book, there’s no use.] In this case, ても / でも precedes 仕方がない, so てたまらない can not be inserted into this example.
- (1) てたまらない is slightly more emotionally-charged that て仕方がない.
Example Sentences:
今日は暑くてたまらない。[It’s so hot that I can’t stand it.]
数学が嫌いでたまらない。[I hate math so much that I can’t stand it.]
この本はおもしろくてたまらない。[This book is so interesting I can’t stand it.]
父が死んで悲しくてたまりません。[My father died, and I’m so sad that I can’t stand it.]
おいしい魚が食べたくてたまりません。[I want to eat delicious fish unbeatably badly.]
僕はあの子が好きでたまらない。[I love that girl so much I can’t stand it.]
兄は田中先生の授業がいやでたまらなかった。[My older brother hated Tanaka-sensei’s class so much that he couldn’t stand it.]
WILD Examples:
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