Eng 
日本語 
JLPT N3 Grammar: How to Use つまり
If you are speaking in Japanese in a casual setting with coworkers or friends, you may want to do away with long form polite language and get “straight to the point”. In cases like this – there are several useful Japanese phrases that can help you. One of which is つまり – tsumari. つまり(tsumari) is JLPT N3 level grammar that you can use in everyday conversation!
In Japanese, you can use the word つまり to summarize or to use the phrase “in short”.
Let’s look at the example of つまり to show what we are talking about.
(Sentence examples courtesy of https://www.tatoeba.org)
Example 1:私にはそれだけの余裕がなかった。つまり、貧しくて買えなかったのだ。
Watashiniha soredake no yoyū ga nakatta. Tsumari, mazushikute kaenakatta noda.
I couldn’t afford it – in other words I was too poor to buy it.
つまり、あなたは愚かだ。Tsumari, anata wa orokada.In other words, you’re stupid.
How to construct a sentence with つまり
To construct a sentence with tsumari, you can either include it as the first word in the sentence. Or use it to connect two similar ideas as below.
Format for sentences using つまり
| Sentence 1 + つまり + sentence 2 |
A similarly related grammar point to tsumari – could be gurai or kurai. Approximately or about.
We will continue to add JLPT Grammar Points to our blog – so stay tuned!
If you are looking for JLPT Prep Courses in Tokyo – click the link on the bottom of the page. 🙂
