Severe, terrible, cruel...
How do you say Hidoi in English?
(Suggested answers and comments)

    Here's how my dictionary translates the sentences from the exercise:

    1.  hidoi atsusa - terrible heat
    2.  hidoi me ni au - to have a bitter experience
    3.  hidoi shiuchi - cruel treatment
    4.  hidoi kaze - a bad cold
    5.  hidoku shikarareru - be severely scolded
    6.  hidoku shukketsu suru - bleed badly
    7.  hidoku kane ni komatte iru - to be badly in want of money

    Notes:
    Of course, other translations are possible:
    • hidoi atsusa  - oppressive heat
    • hidoi shiuchi - harsh treatment
    • hidoi kaze - heavy cold
    • hidoku shukketsu suru - bleed profusely
    • hidoku kane ni komatte iru - to be desperately in need of money
    Anyway, as you can see, the question, "How do you say hidoi in English?" is not an easy one to answer.

    So, how do we know which word to choose?

    In the previous section we saw how difficult it is to translate hidoi. I think the next step is to forget about translating hidoi, and instead concentrate on how we use some of the words which were offered as possible translations. How do we use, for example, bitter, severe and heavy? Which nouns collocate with these adjectives? Let's discuss it below.

    Words that collocate with bitter

    BITTER TASTE
    Most students will be familiar with bitter when it refers to taste. This is usually translated into Japanese as nigai （苦い）:
    • This coffee leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
    • The smell of bitter lemons.

    BITTER ARGUMENT
    Bitter     can also collocate with nouns referring to fighting and arguing, especially if it has involved a lot of hatred and anger. Typical nouns include: argument, dispute, row, fighting, conflict, enemies:

    • After a long and bitter dispute, workers and management finally reached agreement.
    • There has been a lot of bitter fighting along the northern border this weekend.
    • These two countries have been bitter enemies for many years.

    BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT, EXPERIENCE
    Bitter     can also collocate with disappointment, memory and experience. Here it means that you are left feeling very sad and hurt:

    • Not winning a gold medal, after training so hard, was a bitter disappointment to her. 
    • I've learned through bitter experience  never to lend money to anyone.
    • She has many bitter memories of how she was bullied （いじめられた） at school.

    BITTER COLD
    Bitter     can also refer to certain types of extremely cold and unpleasant weather conditions: bitter cold （寒さ not 風邪）,　a bitter wind.

Collocations with severe and heavy

    Here is a shorter list of collocations for two other adjectives we have seen in this lesson:

        SEVERE
        We can talk about:

    •      severe pain, severe injuries, a severe handicap
    •      severe punishment, severe penalties
    •      a severe case of memory loss
    •      severe weather conditions

        HEAVY
        We can talk about:

    •      a heavy cold （風邪 not 寒さ）
    •      a heavy schedule, a heavy workload, a heavy responsibility
    •      heavy traffic

        Note:   
        You can learn more about heavy and its collocations by clicking:
       Heavy smoker, heavy schedule, heavy losses...Common collocations with heavy

   Learning Suggestion

    An important part of being able to use adjectives like bitter, severe and heavy is knowing which other words they collocate with. To do this,it is a good idea to collect examples as you are reading or listening to English. You can also find examples of collocations in most good English dictionaries. As you collect these, you can then make cards like the one below and study them while you're having a cup of coffee or taking the train to work.

    Whenever you try to learn a new adjective, ALWAYS make sure you learn some of its typical collocations:THINK PHRASE NOT WORD. If you do that, your English will become more natural and more fluent.




    BITTER....        
    ...argument, dispute
    ...experience
    ...disappointment
    ...memories
    ...cold （寒さ）
    ... __________
    ... __________
    ... __________
    ... __________

     And, of course, you can write new collocations on the card as you meet them.

      Back to Vanderlei de Lima and the marathon

    Let's go back to the story of Vanderlei de Lima in the marathon. The attacker was a suspended catholic priest called Neil Horan. He has been suspended from working as a priest because of his eccentric (変わった） ideas.

    He said that he hadn't meant to attack de Lima physically but he wanted to use the marathon in order to communicate a message. He wanted to appear on international TV and encourage people to read the Bible. Although de Lima didn't win the gold medal, he was awarded the bronze medal and another special medal called the Coubertin Medal. This medal is given to people who show a very special Olympic spirit. I think de Lima really did show great Olympic spirit: he didn't complain, he continued the race, he was smiling as he entered the stadium and he was smiling when he received his bronze medal. Wouldn't it be great if we could all smile like de Lima when times are hidoi?

    Oh, and that reminds me - how could my student have said that de Lima's situation was hidoi. Maybe "I thought it was really hard on de Lima" would be a good way to communicate this idea.

    We hope you've enjoyed this week's one-point lesson. There are plenty of other one-point lessons on this site. If you want to try some of them, please click below:

    © Robert E. Jones, 2004