Illustration: On an apartment balcony, a resident tries to fold a freshly dried bedsheet into a tidy rectangle. Both hands hold carefully matched corners, but a strong gust has inflated the middle and twisted the far edge around the laundry pole.

JLPT N1i-adjectiveLevel estimated by Bebop

ままならない

mamanaranai

beyond one’s control

Example sentences

  1. 英語えいごもままならないのに、古代こだいギリシャ語ごで話はなせとか、難易度上なんいどあがってるよ。

    English is hard enough, but telling me to speak in Ancient Greek? That’s a huge leap in difficulty.

    Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FR · Source

  2. この時ときすでに体力たいりょくが衰おとろえ、歩あるくことはおろか立たつことさえもままならなかった。

    By this time, he had lost much of his physical strength, and it was a great effort for him to stand, much less walk.

    KFTT corpus (NICT), Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source

  3. しかし、その陰かげで関西かんさいでは歌舞伎かぶきは相変あいかわらず時代後じだいおくれのものとされて、新あらたなファン層そうの拡大かくだいさえもままならない状態じょうたいが続つづいていた。

    Kabuki, however, was still treated as behind the times in Kansai and the desired growth in new fans could not be realized.

    KFTT corpus (NICT), Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source

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