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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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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.
    – naruto
    Jan 21, 2021 at 13:56
  • 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
  • And surprisingly for Japanese it is better than google translate as far as I can judge Jan 21, 2021 at 14:48

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