日曜日ぐらいは家族とともに過ごしたい。
I have looked it up 2 dictionaries and a number of JLPT grammar exercise books but have not figured out what usage of ぐらい this is. Could somebody help and explain please?
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1 Answer
Wiktionary says that there exists a meaning of "at least", and their example seems to match yours:
今回{こんかい}くらいは頑張{がんば}ろうかな。- Maybe I should put in the effort at least once (this time).
See @naruto's comment - 日曜日ぐらい here would be "at least on Sundays".
And this is the translations that deepl gives for what it's worth - "I want to spend at least one Sunday with my family." although it's not clear where the "one" comes from.
Disclaimer: I don't suggest using DeepL (google translate even less so for Japanese) as a reference but it can be used to get a general direction.
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DeepL is good but it often makes mistakes like any other machine translators. This 日曜日ぐらい means "at least Sundays", not one particular Sunday.– narutoJan 21, 2021 at 13:56
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That's why I added "for what it's worth" - I would never use it as a reference, but it's good to get a general direction. Perhaps it saw too many instances of 今回くらい or similar in the training. Jan 21, 2021 at 14:43
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And surprisingly for Japanese it is better than google translate as far as I can judge Jan 21, 2021 at 14:48