いちばん
The best/most
いちばんのNoun
がいちばんAdjective
一番 (いちばん) literally means ”number 1″, ie “the best“. Ichiban is a special type of adjective; It’s treated like an adjective, but uses の to modify nouns; it can directly modify adjectives.
Adjectives
いちばん is most commonly paired with an adjective to mean “the ~est”
- 一番好きな人はかれだ – The person I like most is him.
- 一番かわいい人は僕の彼女だ。 – The cutest person is my girlfriend.
Nouns
It means “the best” or “most” when modifying a noun.
- 彼が一番だ。 – He’s the most/best (something).
- 一番のおかねもち – The most rich person. (of some group)
- 彼女は一番のやきゅうせんしゅ – She’s the best baseball player.
When modifying a noun, it is commonly substituted with 世界一（せかいいち) “Best in the world”
- 世界一のお金持ち – Richest person in the world.
- 世界一のわるもの – Most bad person in the world.
- 世界一の野球選手 – The best baseball player in the world.
のなかで＋いちばん
From X, Y is the best/most (adjective)
X (Group) のなかで、Yが一番(Adjective)
なか means “inside” or “within”. In this case, it refers to a group of choices.
Xのなかで means “Amongst X“.
It is often combined with 一番(いちばん) combined to describe the best choice from some options. Since this is a specific choice and an adjective, you are going to use が.
の中で limits a statement to a particular subset.
Examples
- じゅぎょうの中でにほんごがいちばん。- Amongst (my) classes, Japanese is the best.
- 先生の中で、かれが一番すきだ。- Amongst my teachers, I like him the most.
- ウエブサイトのなかで、Hakushiki が一番すきだ。 Out of all the websites, I like Hakushiki the best.
Comparison:
- この本が一番好きだ。- This is my most liked book. (In the world).
- このとしょかんの本の中で、この本が一番すきだ。- This is book is my favorite in this library.
See also のほうが