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I came accross :

行くのに１時間かかる。

行くには１時間かかる。

And someone told me I could say :

行くのには１時間かかる。

So I would like to know the difference between all these in details please, thanks

永劫回帰
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Tchang
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  • Very curious about this one myself. – Locksleyu Jul 13 '16 at 18:32
  • To me, 行くのには sounds more colloquial and less formal than 行くには. (← I think these two have the same meaning: 「行くのに + topical/contrastive は」) – Chocolate Jul 14 '16 at 03:48
  • @chocolate And in a sentence like 寝るには早すぎる, I don't think 寝るのに早すぎる is correct, so what about that ? – Tchang Jul 14 '16 at 09:31
  • You're right, 寝るには早すぎる (or 寝るのには早すぎる) sounds fine, but 寝るのに早すぎる is a bit awkward. (Maybe it's because ~~すぎる needs to be used with には?) – Chocolate Jul 14 '16 at 11:56
  • @Chocolate If I may, what のに means precisely in Tchang question? Here it is said that の and に are in fact two separate words (japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/57809/…), is that because it is another situation? But I feel the two situations are similar – Starckman Feb 17 '21 at 11:28
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    @starckman の and に are separate words. The の is a nominalizer and the に is a case particle. (The のに here is different from one word のに meaning "although".) The のに in this question literally means の "doing" + に "for" → "for doing~~". – Chocolate Feb 18 '21 at 00:29
  • thank you so much! – Starckman Feb 18 '21 at 09:52
  • @Chocolate Is this similar to what I found here 彼は休憩中に音楽お聞く where に follows 中? – Starckman Feb 18 '21 at 18:26

1 Answers1

4

These are the same except for the contrasting nuance added by「は」

  • 行くのに1時間かかる
  • 行くのには1時間かかる （帰るのには10分ですけど）
    Going there takes an hour. (But coming back takes 10 minutes)

This one is sort of a "set phrase" where the は is playing more of a topic-identifying role rather than a contrasting one.

  • 行くには1時間かかる
    It takes an hour to get there

It seemed natural for me to switch up the word order in the English sentences there between using 行くのに and 行くには. Perhaps there is a shift in focus as well.

sazarando
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    Thanks, but are you sure you would translate that way ? I would translate 行くには１時間かかる by To get there, it takes 1 hour. Doesn't really matter but I just wanna make sure i'm not getting it wrong – Tchang Jul 14 '16 at 02:27
  • I think both translations are good. The one I put in there was just the first thing that popped into my mind. – sazarando Jul 14 '16 at 02:42