Apologies in advance for labouring the point but thank you for taking the time out to respond. I originally translated it that way but it was your translation of 少ない as quite a few (men) that threw me. I’d always thought of 少ない as meaning a few, ie not many. In English, quite a few is effectively an oxymoron carrying the meaning of significantly more than a few. I therefore wondered oxymorons existed in Japanese and if かなり少ない meant quite a few as opposed to almost nobody. Thanks again for your patience. Best, Paul.
Ah yes I get the confusion now. I think I translated it that way because in the moment I felt it made more sense in English. In Japanese, there is no problem if you say かなり少ない, but it becomes a bit strangeif you then turn it into a negative. I, at least, have never seen かなり少なくない (which doesn't mean that it does not exist, but I doubt you'll find many examples). Apologies for the confusion in the translation. I suppose I tried to capture the nuance of 少なくない as opposed to 多い with the 'quite' in this case. A more literal approach would be 'there are not few men in the world who think they know quite a bit about women'. I shifted some things around to make it work logistically.
Dear Bunsuke, in the first two clauses of this sentence is there is there any trick in immediately realising the かなりに qualifies the 少ない and neither of the intermediate verbs? Best, Paul.
Hi Paul, actually I think 可成に does in fact qualify 知りぬく here. I don't think it would be logical to use かなり in combination with a negative the way 尠くない is used in this particular case.
I have the same question, so the exchanges below are most helpful. Thank you Paul and Bunsuke ^_^
Very welcome, glad the comments helped!
Got it, many thanks. Best, Paul.
Apologies in advance for labouring the point but thank you for taking the time out to respond. I originally translated it that way but it was your translation of 少ない as quite a few (men) that threw me. I’d always thought of 少ない as meaning a few, ie not many. In English, quite a few is effectively an oxymoron carrying the meaning of significantly more than a few. I therefore wondered oxymorons existed in Japanese and if かなり少ない meant quite a few as opposed to almost nobody. Thanks again for your patience. Best, Paul.
Ah yes I get the confusion now. I think I translated it that way because in the moment I felt it made more sense in English. In Japanese, there is no problem if you say かなり少ない, but it becomes a bit strangeif you then turn it into a negative. I, at least, have never seen かなり少なくない (which doesn't mean that it does not exist, but I doubt you'll find many examples). Apologies for the confusion in the translation. I suppose I tried to capture the nuance of 少なくない as opposed to 多い with the 'quite' in this case. A more literal approach would be 'there are not few men in the world who think they know quite a bit about women'. I shifted some things around to make it work logistically.
Dear Bunsuke, in the first two clauses of this sentence is there is there any trick in immediately realising the かなりに qualifies the 少ない and neither of the intermediate verbs? Best, Paul.
Hi Paul, actually I think 可成に does in fact qualify 知りぬく here. I don't think it would be logical to use かなり in combination with a negative the way 尠くない is used in this particular case.