I'll keep my ears open to hear the difference. The YOKU that means 'OFTEN' tends to be less emotional and just said normally. Normally if it is the 'skillful' version then there is more emphasis on the YOKU, 'You run WELL!.' I can't think of a situation where the 2 versions of YOKU have been mistaken by myself or the Japanese person I am speaking with. The good news is that Japanese have other ways to say 'run well' and tend to use them. YOKU HASHIRU can mean 'run often' and 'run well'.

You are correct in your assumption that context is needed in order to understand what is actually meant. I would have to dig deeper to confirm this but from what I have found in dictionaries they are 2 separate entries.

I didn’t care anything about the car’s color.It seems that the YOKU that means 'well' and the one that means 'often' are actually both different.For example the phrase “dou demo ii” (どうでもいい), which expresses a lack of interest, can be put in the past tense as: There are many other phrases which normally have “ii” in them and can be changed to past tense by converting “ii” to “yokatta”. Here, even though subject and object of the verb “renraku” (“to contact”) is omitted, since the “kureru” form is used it is pretty clear that the implication is the listener doing a favor for the speaker. (Or: “It’s too bad you didn’t contact me”) Let it rest and use toku ni when you mean especially. Many people are in the habit of saying totemo all the time for everything because it’s just so easy: stop. The particles “no ni” can be optionally added after “yokatta”. toku ni has a different meaning from totemo: it means especially or particularly. I’m glad we were able to see a shooting star.Īnother use of yokatta is after the ~eba (conditional) form, where it can be used to express regret about something which did not occur.流星がみれてよかった (nagareboshi ga mirete yokatta).“yokatta” is also used frequently after a verb in the potential form to express the speaker was glad something was accomplished. But be careful, because “yokattta ne” can also be used in a sarcastic sense, depending on the tone employed. You can add “ne” after “yokatta” if you want to add a mild sense of asking for confirmation from the other party, whereas with just “yokatta” it is as if you are simply stating your feelings. If you want to put extra feeling into this phrase, you can extend the last vowel so it dwindles out slowly, which could be written in Japanese as よかった〜. (If you find this article useful, please consider purchasing my book of classic Japanese fairy tales for only $0.99) You could also translate the second line above as “I’m glad to hear that”. Notice that in English we use the present tense for this type of sentiment, and saying “That was great!” here would be awkward. In fact, it is used to express being happy or glad about something, particularly after you hear good news. 今日の天気はよかった。 (kyou no tenki ha yokatta)Īs I alluded to in the first paragraph, this phrase is actually used for more than the basic “was good” meaning.Here is an example where the topic is specified so there is no ambiguity. Since subjects are often omitted in Japanese this phrase can mean “it was good” or can refer to some other implied subject including a person.

“Yokatta” (よかった) is the past test of the word “ii”, which means “good”, and therefore “yokatta” means “was good”. Oftentimes, words and phrases break out of the boxes that define their literal meanings and become something more.

Totemo vs yoku