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道Nihongo Path

Word 3933 of 4449

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添う

そう

to accompany; to stay by someone's side; to be married to; to meet (expectations); to comply with

By Nihongo PathUpdated

Examples

  1. 母はいつも病気の父に付き添っていた。

    はははいつもびょうきのちちにつきそっていた。

    My mother was always at my sick father's side.

  2. ご期待に添えるよう努力いたします。

    ごきたいにそえるようどりょくいたします。

    We will do our best to live up to your expectations.

  3. 二人は五十年連れ添ってきた。

    ふたりはごじゅうねんつれそってきた。

    The two of them have been married for fifty years.

  4. 今回はご希望に添いかねますこと、お詫び申し上げます。

    こんかいはごきぼうにそいかねますこと、おわびもうしあげます。

    We apologise that we are unable to meet your request on this occasion.

Common patterns

期待に添う
to live up to expectations
付き添う
to attend; to accompany
連れ添う
to be married to; to live as husband and wife

Memory tip

The core image is being right beside something. In business Japanese ご期待に添う / ご希望に添いかねます is a fixed politeness formula. Do not confuse the sentence-ending 〜そうだ (looks like / I hear) with this verb — the corpus sentence filed here originally showed that grammar, not 添う. 沿う (along a road or a policy) is a closely related spelling.

Kanji in this word

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What does 添う mean?