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Why JLPT N3 learners mix up 大半 (たいはん, “majority, mostly, generally”) and あいにく (あいにく, “unfortunately, Sorry, but....”).
Both are sentence-starting adverbs that set context. Learners may confuse 'mostly' (大半)-the general case-with 'unfortunately' (あいにく)-the unlucky exception-when interpreting situational reports.
On JLPT N3, this pair shows up as a vocabulary meaning question. You see one word and pick its English equivalent from four options — one of which will be the other word in this pair, chosen as a distractor precisely because of the overlap.
Reading the explanation is step one. Targeted practice is what actually moves a confusion pair out of your weak list. Free, no signup needed to try.
Practice N3 confusion pairsSpot a mistake in this explanation? Email us. Explanations are AI-generated and human-reviewed; corrections welcome.