Darake, Mamire and Zukume: Three Ways to Say Full Of in Japanese

Three suffixes, three pictures

All three suffixes attach straight to a noun with no particle: doro darake, doro mamire, ii koto zukume. They then behave like a na-adjective or a noun. To end a sentence, add da or desu. To modify a noun, add no. To describe a result, add ni before naru or suru. This shared grammar makes them easy to build. The work is choosing the right one for the picture in your head.

Darake is the widest. It means scattered with or riddled with, and it takes both physical things, such as holes, dust and blood, and abstract ones, such as mistakes, debts and lies. Mamire is narrow: it only takes substances that coat a surface, so blood, sweat, mud, oil, dust, sand and flour, but never mistakes. Zukume is different in spirit: it means composed entirely of, and it describes what a day, an outfit, a meal or a life is made of.

Darake: scattered all over with something unwanted

Darake gives the image of many small things spread everywhere, so that you cannot look without seeing them. Because the speaker is usually complaining, the noun is almost always something unpleasant: kizu, scratches; ana, holes; hokori, dust; shakkin, debts; uso, lies. It is not a formal word, and it is at home in complaints, teasing and casual description. In a report you would replace it with ga ōi or ni michite iru.

The negativity is built in even when the noun is neutral. Hana darake, covered in flowers, sounds as if the flowers are a mess rather than a delight, so for a happy image you would say hana ga ippai or hana de ippai. This is the main trap for learners: darake is not just a lot of, it is a lot of, and I am not pleased. The one common exception is affectionate exaggeration, as when a parent laughs at a child who is chokorēto darake, covered in chocolate.

Mamire: coated in a substance

Mamire comes from the verb mamireru, to be smeared, and it keeps that physical sense. The noun must be a substance that can stick to a surface: chi, blood; ase, sweat; doro, mud; abura, oil or grease; hokori, dust; suna, sand; komugiko, flour. The picture is of a coating, thick and continuous, rather than a scattering. That is why doro mamire feels muddier than doro darake: with mamire the mud is caked on.

Because it is so physical, mamire cannot take abstract nouns. Machigai mamire and uso mamire are wrong. The only common figurative use is in a few set phrases, such as ase mamire ni natte hataraku, work until soaked in sweat, where the sweat is still real. Mamire is neutral to slightly vivid in tone, and it appears in stories, sports reports and everyday talk about children, cooking and cleaning.

Zukume: made entirely of one thing

Zukume comes from tsukusu, to exhaust or use up, and it means that something is made up of one thing from start to finish. It is the only suffix of the three that is comfortable with pleasant nouns. Ii koto zukume, nothing but good things; gochisō zukume, a spread of delicacies; iwai zukume, one celebration after another. It also works with neutral descriptions, especially colours: kuro zukume no fuku, an all-black outfit, is common.

Zukume is a little literary and often appears in set phrases rather than free combinations. It is the word for describing a day, a week, a year, a meal, an outfit or a set of rules. With negative nouns it becomes a complaint about there being nothing else: kisoku zukume, nothing but rules; kaigi zukume no isshūkan, a week of back-to-back meetings. The difference from darake is the picture: darake scatters things across a surface, zukume fills a container to the brim with a single ingredient.

Darake, mamire and zukume side by side

The table lists common combinations and shows which suffix each noun takes. A few nouns accept two suffixes with a shift in image, and those are the ones to study closely.

Doro is the clearest test case. Doro darake describes spatters and patches; doro mamire describes a coating so thick you cannot see the cloth. Both are correct, and the choice tells the listener how bad it was.

Ippai and dake: the near neighbours

Ippai means full or a lot, and it is neutral. Heya ga hito de ippai, the room is full of people; hana ga ippai saite iru, lots of flowers are blooming. Ippai does not attach to the noun directly; it takes de or ga. Use ippai when you want quantity without judgement, or when the fullness is pleasant. It cannot express the riddled-with image of darake or the coated image of mamire.

Dake means only and limits rather than fills. Kisoku dake, only rules, states that nothing else exists; kisoku zukume, nothing but rules, says the whole experience is saturated with them. Learners sometimes hear zukume as a stronger dake, which is not far off, but zukume paints a scene while dake draws a line. There is also bakari, nothing but, which is close to zukume in meaning but attaches to actions and habits as much as things: niku bakari taberu, eat nothing but meat.

• Ippai: a lot, full; neutral or pleasant; takes de or ga, not attached
• Darake: scattered with something unwanted; attached; negative
• Mamire: coated in a substance; attached; physical
• Zukume: consisting entirely of; attached; positive, neutral or negative
• Dake: only; a limit, not a description of fullness
• Bakari: nothing but; used for repeated actions and habits

If you can put the noun in a container and count how full it is, ippai. If it is spattered across a surface, darake. If it is smeared on, mamire. If the whole thing is made of it, zukume.

Example scenes from everyday life

The suffixes come alive when tied to real moments. After a rainy football match, a parent sees doro darake no yunifōmu and doro mamire no sune, muddy kit and mud-caked shins. In the kitchen, a first attempt at tempura leaves the hob abura mamire and the recipe page shimi darake, stained all over. Back at the office, a draft returns from the boss akaji darake, covered in red ink, and the following week is kaigi zukume. On holiday at a ryokan, the dinner is gochisō zukume and the return train is tsukareta hito darake, full of tired people.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

The first mistake is using darake for something pleasant. Tomodachi darake, omoide darake and hana darake all sound like complaints. Use ippai, takusan or, for a whole made of one thing, zukume. The second is attaching mamire to an abstract noun: machigai mamire and shigoto mamire are wrong, because nothing physical is being smeared. Keep mamire for substances.

Third, learners insert a particle: doro no darake and doro ni mamire are not the pattern; the suffix attaches directly. The verb mamireru does take ni, as in doro ni mamireru, but the suffix form is doro mamire. Fourth, zukume is not a free suffix for every noun; it is most natural in the set combinations shown above and with colours, koto, iwai, kisoku, gochisō and events such as kaigi and shutchō. If you are unsure, say bakari or dake instead. Finally, do not double up: doro darake de ippai is redundant. Choose one image and let it stand.