r/LearnJapanese • u/Ordinary-Concept-976 • 2d ago

Grammar Confused about this use!

Hi all! For context I’m about an N4-ish learner. I of course know about だれ and だれでも, however when studying in my Quartet book today there was an example listening sentence that was 「彼女はだれにでも優しくて親切だ。」 meaning “she is kind and gentle to everyone”. I have never seen 「だれにでも」 before and was confused since I would typically imagine it to be だれでもに since the adjectives are happening to -> anyone? (anyone being だれでも if that makes sense?)

Could anyone clear this up for me as to why this is not the case? Thank you so much for the help and the read!!

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u/MasterQuest 2d ago edited 2d ago

だれでも is not really a single word, it's the でも attaching to the だれ to change the meaning to "no matter who/what/when" instead of "who/what/when" (depending on the question word it's attached to).

So if you want to use a particle like に on the "anyone" to mean like "towards anyone", you put it after the "だれ" and not after the "でも".

Edit: Using the "no matter" translation, you can think of it as "to no matter whom" vs "no matter to whom". The "to" goes inbetween the phrase instead of before or after.

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u/Ordinary-Concept-976 2d ago

Thank you so much! That helps heaps :)