なるべく and できるだけ
As much as possible
なるべく and できるだけ are both words meaning “as much as possible“.
Examples
- できるだけ頑張る – Try as much as possible.
- できるだけ食べる – Eat as much as possible.
- なるべく早めに答える – Respond as fast as feasible.
- なるべく残さずに食べてください – As much as possible, eat without leaving anything
- 今夜はできるだけ記事を書く – I will write as many pages as possible tonight
- 今夜はなるべく記事を書く – I will write as many pages as feasible tonight.
Nuance and Differences
できるだけ – More common, “possible” “can”
なるべく – Less common, “Feasible” “try to”
You can default to できるだけ and skip the nuance section if you are in a hurry.
There’s really not a huge difference between them although taken literally:
なるべく – So that it becomes -> try to.
できるだけ – As much as possible.
A small difference apparently exists in that なるべく does not expect “to the maximum possible”,
while できるだけ somewhat implies it, however this nuance is fairly weak.
With this in mind, it may be better to think of なるべく as “as much as is feasible“.
できるだけ is also significantly more common than なるべく, which has a more formal/written Japanese feel to it.
なるべく has a tendency to come before an adjective or adverb, or an adjective or adverb phrase.
That is to say:
なるべく早く食べて sounds better than
なるべく食べて
なるべく is overwhelmingly paired with 早め or 早く.
Noun Modification
One other small difference is that できるだけ may be used with の to modify nouns:
- できるだけのことをやった。- Did as much as possible.
However you cannot do this with なるべく (at least, I cannot find nor have I heard of an example).