other N2 common casualpolitewritten
〜甲斐 — worth doing / the rewarding value of ~
〜甲斐 ・ がい
Builds on 連用形（ます形）
Meaning
- worth ~ing / the rewarding value of ~ — the sense that an effort pays off and is worth making
Key sentence
この仕事はやり甲斐がある。
This job is rewarding (worth doing).
Formation
| Attaches to | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Verb (ます-stem) + 甲斐; or Noun + の + 甲斐 | V-stem + 甲斐(がある) / Nの甲斐 | 生き甲斐 / 教え甲斐 / 努力の甲斐 |
Examples
毎日練習した甲斐があって、優勝できた。
All that daily practice paid off, and I won the championship.
彼は教え甲斐のある生徒だ。
He's a student who makes teaching feel worthwhile.
When you can't use it
- As a suffix on a verb it reads 〜がい (rendaku): やりがい, 生きがい. The standalone noun 甲斐 (努力の甲斐) keeps the unvoiced かい. The negative is 甲斐がない 'pointless / in vain'.
Notes
- 生き甲斐 ('something that makes life worth living') and やり甲斐 ('a sense of fulfillment from a task') are fixed, very common nouns.
See 〜甲斐 in real sentences
Jengo shows 〜甲斐 the way you actually meet it: inside real Japanese sentences, so it sticks instead of staying an abstract rule.
Study it in JengoSources Compiled with reference to A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar. Editorial confidence: medium.