How to Express Difficulty and Possibility …やすい, …にくい, …かねる, and …得る

Last time, you learned how to express partial negation and double negative, e.g. “必かならずしも漢かん字じが難むずかしいわけじゃない (Kanji is not always difficult),” and “勉べん強きょうしないことはない (I will perhaps study).” Then, if you would like to say, “Kanji is difficult to memorize,” how should you say it? In this lesson, you will learn how to express difficulty and possibility.

Explanation for the Usage of …やすい, …にくい, …かねる, and …得る

We will introduce you to four sentence patterns with relative expressions here. Don’t worry. They conjugate in the same way, which is to connect with the polite form instead of です. That’s very simple, isn’t it? Now, let’s learn what they can express.

Expressing Difficulty

Stem of Verbs + やすい: Easy to Do

The origin of やすい comes from the word “易やすい: easy.” By attaching やすい, you express “easy to do” in Japanese. Volitional verbs should be used here. After the conjugation, you need to treat it as an i-adjective.

If verbs are non-volitional ones, you express frequency is high.

Stem of Verbs + にくい: Difficult to Do

This is the antonym of “Verb + やすい” and indicates “difficult to do” by attaching にくい with volitional verbs.  When you want to express a person who feels difficulty like “it’s difficult for me” in English, you use the particle に which is often used with は. Note: If you use にくい with non-volitional verbs, you express frequency or attributes (*the third example).

There are similar expressions. づらい, which comes from “辛つらい: bitter,” is used with volitional verbs and indicates “emotionally difficult to do.” For the sake of simplicity, you can consider that you can use づらい when you feel bitter or painful with the actions.

がたい is used with volitional verbs when you are willing to do something, but it’s situationally difficult to do so. This may sound more formal and be less often used than the other two. 

Expressing Impossibility

Stem of Verbs + かねる: Impossible to Do Despite of Your Will 

The function is to express that you emotionally want to do something, but it’s impossible to do so because of external, unavoidable situations. One important point here is that “Verb + かねる” should be treated as a verb. Thus, you need to further conjugate it to express progressive tense, past tense, etc. Since かねる expresses you emotionally want to do, it’s often used to decline something in formal situations.

If you attach ようがない instead of かねる, you express that it’s impossible to do something because there is no way to do so. When Japanese people use suru-verbs, they sometimes add の in between.

Expressing Possibility

Stem of Verbs + 得える: Events Can Happen

The function is to express “events can happen.” 得る can be read as both “える” and “うる,” but when it comes to conjugation, it’s more common to use える like ありえます, ありえない, ありえれば, etc (*得る can be written in both kanji and hiragana).

You can also set animate things as a subject. The meaning will be “it’s possible that…” or “able to do.” However, since the formality is high, you can use 得る with animate subjects only in formal tone. You can reword them in neutral tone as follows.

Summary

1. Stem of verbs + やすい expresses "easy to do."
2. Stem of verbs + にくい expresses "difficult to do."
3. Stem of verbs + づらい expresses "emotionally difficult to do."
4. Stem of verbs + がたい expresses "you are wil ling to do something, but it’s situationally difficult to do so"
5. Stem of verbs + かねる expresses "you want to do something, but it’s impossible because of external, unavoidable situations."
6. Stem of verbs + ようがない expresses "impossible to do something because there is no way to do so."
7. Stem of verbs + 得る expresses "events can happen."

Grammatically speaking, やすい and にくい should be introduced in the basic grammar section. They are not difficult, but frequently used in everyday life. However, there are some similar expressions with different nuances such as づらい and がたい. That’s why we introduce them together here. If you aim to be an advanced Japanese speaker, try to properly use them depending on the situation.