# 意外と簡単に自分で作れそう



## Jmangeo

Hello again everybody!

I have a question about this prhase:

ケーキは、意外と簡単に自分で作れそうだね...。

It is a comment in a youtube video about famous scene is Azumanga daioh when Chiyo-chan sings a cute song while she's cooking a cake.

_It's extremely easy make a cake if someone going to eat it._

I think this could be correct, but my japanese is still bad so I hope some corrections.

P.E: I'm not sure if the name of the post is the best option, please some mod maybe can correct it.


----------



## Dheara

"The cake, it seems to me that I could make it by myself surprisingly easy"
It seems to me that I could make the cake surprisingly easy.

This translation is not correct anyway, but:


> It's extremely easy to make a cake if someone is going to eat it.


----------



## teechan

We use "意外と（意外に）" when the quality of something is not what you previously expected. Of course sometimes it surprises you, but it doesn't necessarily mean "surprisingly".

Here's my translation.

"Making a cake doesn't seem that difficult."

I know this is not a word-for-word translation, but I'm pretty sure that the nuance is fairly close.


----------



## Dheara

Well, I just tried to translate it literally...


----------



## teechan

Oh sorry Dheara. My bad. I didn't mean to deny your opinion though.


----------



## Wishfull

This is my ultimate Japanese-ish literal English.

"A cake turns out to be something which disarmingly is cooked easily by an amateur's hand, doesn't it?"


----------



## Flaminius

Buna večer, *Dhearo*.  [Is this vocative ultra-uptight? ]

意外と is _surprisingly_ in that it is used when your expectation does not match the reality.  You won't find anything contradictory to this sense in dictionary entries.  Cf., e.g., 大辞泉 s.v. 意外 (emphasis mine):


> ［名・形動］考えていた状態と非常に違っていること。また、そのさま。「事件は―な展開を見せた」「―に背が高い」



Many people nowadays —I suspect your author is one of them— use 意外と / 意外に even when the difference is very small.  The intended message is not surprise but resolved anxiety: "I thought baking this cake is difficult, so I am glad that it turned out to be easy."  The newly found easiness, or difficulty, ranges from "difficult but bearable" to "somewhat difficult" to "a piece of cake".


----------



## Jmangeo

I'm very thankfull to you all and sorry if my questions are a bit excentric sometimes 
I hope to learn kanjis like these 意外と soon (At the present, I'm learning katakana alphabet)


----------



## Dheara

Thanks for the explanations, Flaminius!



> Buna večer, *Dhearo*.



Buna večer is not a Romanian greeting... 

http://www.wikihow.com/Say-Hello-in-Different-Languages


----------



## horangi

"Surprisingly" is fine in this context, in that it has the same mean as "unexpectedly." Surprisingly is often used synonymously with unexpectedly - it doesn't necessarily imply that someone was really surprised, just that they thought it would be different.

"It's surprisingly easy to make a cake yourself, isn't it?" 

If you want a really literal translation, it would be:

"It seems that I can make a cake by myself unexpectedly easily, doesn't it?"


----------



## Dheara

horangi said:


> "Surprisingly" is fine in this context, in that it has the same mean as "unexpectedly." Surprisingly is often used synonymously with unexpectedly - it doesn't necessarily imply that someone was really surprised, just that they thought it would be different.
> 
> "It's surprisingly easy to make a cake yourself, isn't it?"
> 
> If you want a really literal translation, it would be:
> 
> "It seems that I can make a cake by myself unexpectedly easily, doesn't it?"





> ケーキは、意外と簡単に自分で作れそうだね...。


作れそうだ is VB連用形＋そう, which means that what we have here is the Aspectual そうだ ＝ it seems TO ME (is my impression, this is how I see it).


----------

