# 速きこと風の如し



## Pavel Bond

速きこと風の如し、
風の如く速し
Both mean something like "Fast like a wind", as I understand.
But　I can find nowhere forms 速きこと and 速し。How are they formed, read and what they mean?
No context, they are given just as examples for 如く/如し.


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## Flaminius

They are old conjugations and used only in literary contexts today.  The first example sentence is from 孫子 and usually quoted as a literary translation 疾きこと風のごとし.

はやし is the old terminative form and はやき is the old adnominal form.  Both of them have merged into はやい in Modern Japanese.


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## Pavel Bond

Thank you.
I also met a similar phrase
風の如し速さ。
If I understand right, it means "Speed like that of the wind".
May I use these expressions as adverbs, for ex.:
速きこと風の如し人
風の如く速し人
風の如し速さ人
A man, fast like a wind?
If not, could you please give me examples, how they can be used?


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## Flaminius

Maybe I should have explained what my terms meant.  By terminative form, I meant はやし is used as the predicate of a sentence (My car is "fast.") and by adnominal form I meant はやき is the form for modifying a noun (my "fast" car).  

Now, ごとし conjugates in the same paradigm as はやし (while it is classed as an auxiliary verb, it conjugates like the class of adjectives that includes はやし).  So ごとき modifies nouns and ごとし is the predicate of a sentnence.  ごとく is the adverbial form meaning it modifies conjugated elements such as verbs and adjectives.

Your four attempts above have errors in one way or another, but I believe I have given tools above to correct them all.


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## ktdd

In classical Japanese, adjectives conjugate like this:
未然形：はやく（ば） 
　　　　はやから（ず）
連用形：はやく（なる）
　　　　はやかり（けり）
終止形：はやし（。）
連体形：はやき（とき）
　　　　はやかる（べし）
已然形：はやけれ（ども・ば）
命令形：はやかれ（！）
K-dropping happened in rentai-kei and renyou-kei:
はやき＝＞はやい this form of rentai-kei eventually replaced shuushi-kei and gave us the modern dictionary form.
はやく＝＞はやう＝＞はよう this form of renyou-kei is preserved in dialects and set phrases like おはようございます.

In short, it's き before noun, く before verb, し at the end of a sentence. Yup, your sentences are all wrong. (速さ is a noun, by the way)


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## SoLaTiDoberman

Pavel Bond said:


> Thank you.
> I also met a similar phrase
> 風の如き速さ。
> If I understand right, it means "Speed like that of the wind".
> May I use these expressions as adverbs, for ex.:
> 速きこと風の如き人
> 風の如く速き人
> 風の如く速き人
> A man, fast like a wind?
> If not, could you please give me examples, how they can be used?


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## Pavel Bond

Flaminius, ktdd, SoLaTiDoberman, thank you very match, now it's very clear for me.


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## Pavel Bond

If I say 速きこと風の如き速さです！, will it sound ok for a native speaker?


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## SoLaTiDoberman

Yes and no.
Your sentence is grammatically correct, but too long and maybe awkward.

『速きこと風の如き』速さです！ is okay when you say it with a proper intonation, though.

Besides, 風の如き速さです! is perfect.

Otherwise,
『速きこと風の如き』的速さです！
『速きこと風の如き』的な速さです！
『速きこと風の如き』のような速さです！ seem more natural.


...The problem is that 『速さ』and 『速きこと』become a kind of duplicated-meaning expression.

『疾きこと風の如き』速さです！may seem better when I read it, because the choice of different kanji can avoid the duplication.


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## Pavel Bond

Thank you! The more I learn Japanese, the more interesting it seems to me)).


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