The Adverb せめて
The adverb せめて establishes a bare minimum realization of a desirable circumstance which cannot be fully attained.
せめて
せめて means “at the very least” and implies that the statement itself is a concession to a more desirable circumstance. There is often an emotional attachment to said desirable circumstance.
せめて is often paired with the adverbial particles くらい・ぐらい (about) and は when used in conjunction with an entity that can be quantified. It is also often paired with predicates involving desire, commands, requests, and volition. One major restriction to keep in mind is that せめて is only paired with verbal predicates.
1. せめて夢の中なら、何でも自由にできるでしょう。
Shouldn’t you at least be able to do anything freely inside a dream?
2. せめて酒はやめなよ。
Quit drinking at the very least.
3. 小さな事業でも興したいので、せめてパソコンくらいはほしいです。
Because I want to start up a small business, I want at least a computer.
4. どんなに経済的にも大変でも、せめて光熱費を払ったほうがいい。
No matter how financially troubled you are, it’s best to at least pay your utility costs.
5. せめて一万円は支払わなきゃいけない。
I’ll have to pay at least 10,000 yen.
6. せめて宿題ぐらいはしといて。
At the very most, do your homework beforehand!
7. せめて一年間ぐらい日本に住んでみたいんですがねえ。
I’d sure like to at least live in Japan for a year, though.
8. どんなに疲れていても、せめて三十分くらいは勉強してください。
No matter how tired you are, at least study for thirty minutes.
9. せめて週に一回くらいは運動した方がいいですよ。
It’s best to at least exercise once a week.
10. どんなにあの人が嫌いでも、せめて挨拶ぐらいはしたほうがいい。
No matter how much you hate that person, it’s best to at least great him.
11. 毎日せめて一時間ぐらい勉強してきてほしいですねえ。
I wish that they’d at least come to study an hour daily.
12. アメリカでは、せめて一度はハワイへ行ってみたいと思う人が多い。
There are a lot of people in America who would like to visit Hawaii at least once.
13. せめて電話ぐらいしてくれればよかったのに。
You could’ve at least called me.
14. せめてこの昼だけでも、幸せな食事をさせてやりたいと、金田は思った。
Kaneda wished to give (her) a happy dinner experience, even if was just for this afternoon.
When directly modifying a noun, せめて manifests as せめてもの～.
15. 電車が空いているのがせめてもの救いだった。
My saving grace was that the train was empty.
Historical Nuancing of せめて
For Advanced Study
In Modern Japanese, せめて is classified as a mood adverb (叙法副詞), whose grammatical purpose is to qualify the speaker’s attitude/relationship toward the action embodied by the predicate. While translated as “at the very least,” the main takeaway is that the speaker’s evaluation in the affirmative is being qualified, granted that that qualification may be accompanied with some other adverbial phrase pertaining to quantity (量副詞) and/or degree (程度副詞).
Meanwhile, as pervasive as this usage is today, せめて did not start out with this meaning or grammatical role, for that matter. When it appeared as adverb, derived from the verb 責む1 (to urge/press), in the Early Heian Period, it was used as a 情態副詞2 that, unsurprisingly, pertained to coercion, much like 強いて3 in Modern Japanese. From coercion, it attained a meaning similar to 極度に (extremely), especially with adjectival predicates, which meant it did at one point get used as a degree adverb (程度副詞). By the Kamakura Period, it attained a meaning similar to やむを得ず (unavoidably) as a mood adverb, which rapidly onset the decline of its prior meanings of “coercively” and “extremely,” and from this new meaning, it did not take long for it to attain the reluctance (不本意) and insufficiency (不十分) built into its modern usage—the final step in the logic being that the state/circumstance described by the predicate is the minimum of which the agent ought to desire.
To read more, see 林 (2012).
参照
『副詞「せめて」の意味変化』by 林禔映.
- 責む (責める in Modern Japanese) is the transitive iteration of 迫る (to press), and て is best understood as the 連用形 of the perfect tense auxiliary verb つ. ↩︎
- A subset of 様態副詞 (adverb of manner) pertaining to the emotional background behind the manner of which an action is done. ↩︎
- Within its initial nuancing, a sense of being physically and/or emotionally cornered/pressured could be felt, but unlike 強いて, it also often had a nuance of 精一杯, indicating a positive outlook of pursuit. ↩︎