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Grammar detail: ずいぶん

ずいぶん  considerably
210 words
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ずいぶん modifies the meaning of a verb to convey the idea of 'considerably', in the same way as might be done in English.
まち
その
とき
いらい
以来
ずいぶん
わった

The town has changed a great deal since then.
However, it can also be used in ways which can initially be confusing to an English speaker, because English would not use an adverb in the same situation. Consider the following example:
かれ
についてずいぶん
おお
はなし
かた
られている

Many a story has been told about him.
At first it might look as though ずいぶん is modifying the noun phrase
おお
くの
はなし
. In fact, it is modifying the verb,
かた
れられている. So a more literal translation would be 'many stories about him have considerably been told'.
The following example might be especially confusing. In English we would need to use the pronoun 'many' as the subject of the sentence. In Japanese, we can just modify the verb:
ずいぶん
んでいました

Many had died.
In fact, all of these examples illustrate how Japanese is more regular than English. In English, to convey the idea of doing a considerable amount of something, we need to remember various different forms depending on the vocabulary we use. Japanese can conveniently use ずいぶん to indicate the idea of a lot of something happening, whatever verb happens to express the something.
About 20% of the time you might encounter ずいぶん written with kanji as 随分, but this is becoming less and less common.
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Kanji used in this grammar

タ   おお many   
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ワ   はな to talk   はなし talking   
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ゴ   かた to talk, relate   かたらう to talk together, chat   
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ズイ    follow   
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ブン   ブ   フン   わける to divide, to distinguish   わかる to understand   わかれる to be divided   わかつ to share, distribute   
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チョウ   まち town   
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ジ   とき time, occasion   
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イ    (prefix) or   
ライ   く to come   きた to be forthcoming   きた to induce   
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ヘン   unusual   かえる to alter, change   かわる to change   
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ヒ   かれ he   
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シ   death   し die   
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