Structure
Verb［stem］+ げ + に(1)
［い］Adjective［い］+ げ + に(1)
［な］Adjective + げ + に(1)
(1) な + Noun
Details
Standard
About げ
げ, sometimes seen in the kanji form 気 is a suffix in Japanese that expresses that something is 'giving off the feeling of (A)', or 'seems like (A)'. げ is frequently used in relation to emotions, feelings, and things that the speaker generally can't be 100% sure of due to them not being directly visible.
げ is primarily seen used after the stem form of い-Adjectives, but may also appear following the stem forms of nouns of な-Adjectives. In all of these cases, the addition of げ creates a new な-Adjective meaning '(A) seeming'. Due to this, げ may then be followed by either な or に, depending on whether it is altering a verb or a noun later in the sentence.
げ is more subjective (based on the speaker's opinion) than そう, and is considered to be very low confidence. This may be considered a byproduct of the original 気, meaning of 'attention', referring to the way that the speaker 'senses (A)', regardless of what is actually true for (A) on the inside.
Related
Examples
--:--
教養がありすぎて可愛気がないのもどうかと思う。
I wonder about things that are too refined and therefore don't give off the appearance of being cute.
A：どうしてそんなに満足気なの？
B：日本語能力試験、合格したんだよ！[満足]A: Why are you giving off the appearance of being so satisfied?
B: I passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test!彼が恥ずかし気に自分の弱点を教えてくれた。
Seemingly embarrassed, he told us about his weak points.
涼し気な顔でマラソンを走りきるんだから大したもんだよ。
It was considerable that he finished running the marathon while seemingly undeterred.
彼女はとても素直だが、どことなく儚気なのが気になります。
She is very honest, but I am concerned by her somehow fickle appearance.
Get more example sentences!
Premium users get access to 12 example sentences on all Grammar Points.
Self-Study Sentences
Online
Additional info and example sentences
JapaneseTest4You
Difference between げ and そう
Japanese StackExchange
More examples
JGram
Offline
There are no Offline resources listed for 「げ」.
You can . Resources are constantly updated, come back later to see new additions!
Track Resources!
Bunpro tracks all of the resources you’ve visited, and offers relevant bookmarks of physical books to help with offline tracking.
げ – Grammar Discussion
Most Recent Replies (4 in total)
okayfrog
bit confused as to when to use げ + な or げ + に
I just got 彼が恥ずかし気に自分の弱点を教えてくれた wrong because I used な instead of に, which doesn’t make sense to me. Isn’t な used for nouns?
casual
You have it right, な to modify a noun and に to modify a verb. But in this case it’s modifying 教える, not 弱点.
恥ずかし気に弱点を教えた。
Bashfully told about the weak point.恥ずかし気な態度で弱点を教えた。
With an bashful look, told about the weak point.恥ずかしい弱点を教えた。
Told about an embarrassing weak point.The weak point itself probably cannot give an appearance.
Edit: Or did you mean it could be modifying 自分? I don’t think this combination is possible either, but if it was meant like this, hopefully English translation would also say something like “weak point of embarrassed self” .
Jeix
In this example sentence:
彼女が意味あり気な表情で僕を見つめている。何かあったのかな？(ある)
She is staring at me with the facial expression that gives off the appearance of knowing something about me. I wonder if something happened.Where does the “knowing something about me” come from? When I read it, I thought it was just a meaningful expression, but without a specific intention to the meaning.