Simple Adverbs
This page deals with a few simple miscellaneous adverbs:
- どうせ
- ふたたび
- はたして
どうせ
Anyway/Might as well
どうせ + Clause
どうせ means “anyway” or “regardless”.
It is typically used to dismiss some information as irrelevant to a result
In hypotheticals it is used like “If you’re going to X anyway, might as well…”.
It comes at the start of a clause.
Examples
- 頑張っても無駄だ。どうせ負ける。
It doesn’t matter if you try hard. You’re going to loose anyway. - どうせやるならうまくやるんだ
If I’m going to do it, I might as well do it well. - どうせなら本を持って行って読むんだ
Well, if its going to happen anyway, I might as well take a book and read it. - 僕の提案はいつも無視されている。僕はどうせ下っ端だ。
My ideas are always ignored. I guess its because I’m a grunt anyway. (I am so low it doesn’t matter).
*This どうせ technically expresses “resignation”. - もう帰る。どうせ彼は来ないから (Weblio)
I’m going home. He’s not going to come anyway. (Doesn’t matter if I go home).
ふたたび
Again, twice
ふたたび (再び) simply means “again” but is sometimes used to mean twice. (Rare)
The Kanji here is worth learning because it appears in a lot of compounds meaning “again” or “re-“.
This is a more literary way of saying また or もう一度, and is more likely to be used to describe a situation than about one’s self.
Examples
- この国を再び繁栄させる
Make this country prosperous again. (NO not like that) - 再び廊下に出た
Came out into the hallway again. - まだ気になっていたようで、彼は再び本を開けて見た
It appears it was still bothering him, so he opened the book and looked again.
はたして
Really
果たして + Clause
果たして (はたして) comes from a verb meaning “to fulfill” or “to finish”.
As an adverb it means “really”*
You will most commonly see it as:
はたして + questioned statement + のか
*Technically It has 3 different meanings, but you don’t really need to know them and its a bit much to cover here.
(As expected, really, and いったい)
Examples
- 果たしてできるのか？
Can they really do it? - その可能性は果たしてあるのか？
Does that possibility really exist? - これははたして彼の書いた物だろうか。(weblio)
Is this really something that he wrote?