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I asked this question earlier:

Mother: 当分ここに住むから。

Son: えっ!? 何だよそれ。

Mother: カワイイ一人息子が頭 打ったんだ。

Mother: 様子見くらい いいっしょ。

Here's the question: What does 様子見くらいいいっしょ｡ mean?

  • 様子見 = wait-and-see
  • くらい = about?around? dunno
  • いいっしょ = it's good, isn't it? it's ok, right? dunno

But after hours of discussing with some guys I finally get to understand it, though I don't know how to make a literal translation. I can make a decent English translation but not a literal translation.

So, here's what I learned:

様子見くらい いいっしょ｡

Breaking it down.

様子見: Gives the idea of "taking care";"looking after";"checking in on you".

くらい: It was really tricky to learn it, I got something like: For my particular context it gives off the feeling/nuance of "XYZくらい　いいでしょう”　”The amount of XYZ... (is small)　It's not too much to handle, right?”　”It's not going to hurt you to do a little XYZ"

In other words, sometimes XYZくらい trivializes the XYZ

いいっしょ: meaning I think; it seems; probably; right?

So, what would be a literal translation to it? (I don't know if this kind of question is acceptable in this website, if it's not. Please warn me, and I'll delete it).

Community
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Ayato Nagayoo
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    `But after hours of discussing with some guys I finally get to understand it` -- In that case please [edit your original question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/77576/様子見くらい-いいっしょ-i-cant-make-sense-out-of-it?noredirect=1) and add new info there, instead of posting a new question. – Chocolate May 25 '20 at 05:23
  • I've merged your old question into the new one, so both answers show up in the same place. – Chocolate May 28 '20 at 01:00

2 Answers2

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  • 様子見 means wait-and-see, watch-and-wait, or seeing what happens without any actual intervention. "Taking care" and "looking after" are probably misleading because they imply intervention.
  • くらい basically means "this much" or "about", but it indeed implies 様子見 is not a big deal, so "just 様子見" is a valid translation.
  • いい is "fine", "good", etc.
  • っしょ is colloquialism for でしょう, which is "I think", "..., isn't it?", etc.

Therefore a literal translation is like "I think just watching and waiting is fine". It could be translated like "It's at least fine for me to watch you, huh?"

naruto
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様子見 = wait-and-see → Correct. It's a noun.

くらい = about?around? → Main use of くらい is "about" or "around", but there are also other usages.

明鏡国語辞典
くらい 〘副助〙　〔「ぐらい」とも〕： ❷ 物事を示して、その程度が軽いことを表す。

「それくらいのことでめげるな」

「お茶を飲むくらいつきあえよ」

So くらい is used to show that the previous thing is something small or trivial.

Ex. それくらいで慌（あわ）てるな。= Don't get upset over such small thing.

それぐらいは僕でも知ってる。= Even I know that much.

いいっしょ → Colloquial for いいでしょう.

I don't know the context but 様子見くらい いいっしょ｡ is like "My dear only son got a bang on the head, just let me wait and see, darling!" something like that.

lingodeerapp
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