だらけ, ずつ, ほか, 以外 | Japanese Grammar

This page gathers four small quantity-and-limit words that share a job — measuring or bounding an amount — but each hides a nuance that a dictionary gloss flattens. だらけ（だらけ）looks like "full of," but it means full of something unwelcome. ずつ folds two English senses ("each" and "at a time") into one form. ほか and 以外（いがい）both translate as "other than," yet they aren't interchangeable. Get the connotations right and your Japanese stops sounding like translated English.

だらけ — "covered in / riddled with" (and it's a bad thing)

Attach だらけ to a noun and it means the thing is all over the place, in unwelcome abundance. The key is that connotation: だらけ almost always frames the abundance as dirty, damaged, wrong, or otherwise a nuisance. 泥（どろ）だらけ is a child so muddy you sigh; 間違い（まちがい）だらけ is an essay so error-ridden it's embarrassing.

子供が泥だらけになって帰ってきた。

kodomo ga doro darake ni natte kaette kita

The kid came home covered in mud.

転んで、膝が傷だらけになった。

koronde, hiza ga kizu darake ni natta

I fell and my knees got covered in scrapes.

この作文は間違いだらけで、赤ペンだらけになった。

kono sakubun wa machigai darake de, akapen darake ni natta

This essay was so full of mistakes it ended up covered in red pen.

彼は借金だらけで、電話にも出ない。

kare wa shakkin darake de, denwa ni mo denai

He's up to his ears in debt and won't even answer the phone.

Because the negativity is built in, だらけ is not a neutral "full of." For pleasant or neutral abundance, use いっぱい ("full, plenty") instead. Compare:

Expression	Feel	Example
〜だらけ	unwelcome excess (dirt, flaws, damage)	ゴミだらけの部屋 (a room full of trash)
〜でいっぱい	neutral / positive fullness	思い出でいっぱい (full of memories)
〜まみれ	coated in a sticky substance (liquid/powder)	汗まみれ (drenched in sweat)

💡

だらけ and まみれ both say "covered in," but they divide the labor: まみれ is for substances that physically coat you — 汗（あせ）まみれ (sweat), 血（ち）まみれ (blood), 泥まみれ (mud) — while だらけ is for a scattering of countable, usually bad things — 傷だらけ, 間違いだらけ, 借金だらけ. Mud takes either; sweat and blood strongly prefer まみれ, and mistakes strongly prefer だらけ.

The closest English equivalents to だらけ are the suffixes -ridden and -infested — "debt-ridden," "error-ridden," "crime-ridden" — which, like だらけ, bake the disapproval right into the word. "Full of" is too neutral; when an English speaker translates 間違いだらけ as "full of mistakes," they lose the sigh that a Japanese speaker hears. だらけ also freely modifies a following noun with の:

血だらけの手で、彼は助けを求めた。

chi darake no te de, kare wa tasuke o motometa

With blood-covered hands, he cried for help.

ほこりだらけの本棚を、一日かけて掃除した。

hokori darake no hondana o, ichi nichi kakete sōji shita

I spent a whole day cleaning the dust-covered bookshelf.

ずつ — "each / apiece / at a time"

ずつ marks even distribution. It attaches to a quantity (a number-plus-counter, or a word like 少し / 一つ) and splits it out evenly. English cuts this idea into two phrasings — "X each / apiece" and "X at a time" — but Japanese uses the single word ずつ for both.

お菓子を三個ずつ配った。

okashi o san ko zutsu kubatta

I handed out three sweets each.

一人ずつ名前を呼びます。

hitori zutsu namae o yobimasu

I'll call your names one at a time.

この薬は一日に二錠ずつ飲んでください。

kono kusuri wa ichi nichi ni ni jō zutsu nonde kudasai

Take two tablets of this medicine per day.

The "at a time / gradually" sense is especially common with 少し（すこし）ずつ ("little by little") — a phrase you'll use constantly to describe slow, steady progress.

少しずつ日本語が上手になっている。

sukoshi zutsu nihongo ga jōzu ni natte iru

Little by little, my Japanese is getting better.

貯金を毎月少しずつ増やしている。

chokin o maitsuki sukoshi zutsu fuyashite iru

I'm building up my savings little by little every month.

The one thing to get right is placement: ずつ comes after the whole quantity, counter included — 三個ずつ, never ×三ずつ個. It cliticizes onto the complete amount. And the two English senses aren't really two meanings — they're two views of one idea. "Three sweets each" distributes across people; "one page at a time" distributes across time; both are the same evenly-portioned splitting, so Japanese never had reason to split them into separate words. When ずつ rides on a change verb, it paints slow, steady, portion-by-portion movement:

部屋が一つずつ埋まっていった。

heya ga hitotsu zutsu umatte itta

The rooms filled up one by one.

ほか(に) — "besides / other / else"

ほか（他）means "another one / the rest / else." As ほかに it asks or states "besides that, in addition"; as ほかの it modifies a noun ("some other _"); and ほか…ない builds "there's no other." It's the flexible, everyday "other."

ほかに質問はありますか。

hoka ni shitsumon wa arimasu ka

Are there any other questions?

この方法しかない。ほかにいい手が思いつかない。

kono hōhō shika nai. hoka ni ii te ga omoitsukanai

This is the only way. I can't think of any other good move.

それはほかの人に聞いてみて。

sore wa hoka no hito ni kiite mite

Try asking someone else about that.

In writing, ほか often appears in its Sino-Japanese form その他（そのた / そのほか） — "et cetera / the others" — the phrase you'll see closing a list on a form or a slide: 交通費、宿泊費、その他 ("transport, lodging, and other expenses"). It's the same "the rest" idea in a (formal / written) coat.

以外 — "except / other than"

以外 also translates as "other than," but it's a noun suffix of exclusion: X以外 = "the set of everything except X." It reaches back to a specific named item and carves it out. It commonly appears as X以外は ("as for anything but X"), X以外に ("apart from X"), and X以外の ("_ other than X").

このことは、私以外は知らない。

kono koto wa, watashi igai wa shiranai

No one other than me knows about this.

日本語以外の言語も話せますか。

nihongo igai no gengo mo hanasemasu ka

Can you speak languages other than Japanese?

あなた以外に頼れる人がいない。

anata igai ni tayoreru hito ga inai

There's no one I can rely on other than you.

ダイエット中なので、水以外は飲まない。

daietto chū na node, mizu igai wa nomanai

I'm on a diet, so I don't drink anything but water.

ほか vs 以外 — which to use?

They overlap, but the instinct differs. 以外 pins down a named item and excludes exactly it ("everyone except you"); it needs that concrete reference point and often pairs with a negative to mean "no one/nothing but." ほか points at "the rest / some other one" more loosely, and works fine in positive sentences ("ask someone else," "is there anything else?"). When you can say "except for X," reach for 以外; when you mean "another / the rest," reach for ほか. In practice ほかに and 以外に are often interchangeable — ほかに人がいない ≈ あなた以外に人がいない.

All four words on this page are, at heart, about drawing a boundary around a quantity — how much, spread how, and what's left outside. That puts them in the same family as the core limiters だけ (only) and しか…ない (nothing but), which fence a quantity down to a limit, and the degree words ほど / くらい, which measure how far along a scale. Where だけ says "only this much" and 以外 says "everything but this," they are two sides of the same fence: だけ names what's inside, 以外 names what's outside. Seeing them as one system — inclusion, exclusion, distribution, excess — is faster than memorizing each in isolation.

Common mistakes

❌ 公園は花だらけできれいだった。

kōen wa hana darake de kirei datta

Odd — だらけ frames abundance as unwelcome, clashing with 'beautiful.' Use でいっぱい for pleasant fullness.

✅ 公園は花でいっぱいできれいだった。

kōen wa hana de ippai de kirei datta

The park was full of flowers and beautiful.

❌ お菓子を三ずつ個配った。

okashi o san zutsu ko kubatta

Incorrect — ずつ follows the whole quantity, counter included: 三個ずつ.

✅ お菓子を三個ずつ配った。

okashi o san ko zutsu kubatta

I handed out three sweets each.

❌ 練習の後、汗だらけになった。

renshū no ato, ase darake ni natta

Unnatural — sweat is a coating substance, so use まみれ, not だらけ.

✅ 練習の後、汗まみれになった。

renshū no ato, ase mamire ni natta

After practice I was drenched in sweat.

❌ 私以外に誰も知っている。

watashi igai ni dare mo shitte iru

Incorrect — an exclusion with 誰も takes a negative verb.

✅ 私以外は誰も知らない。

watashi igai wa dare mo shiranai

No one but me knows.

The recurring trap is treating だらけ as a neutral "full of." It carries a wince — dirt, flaws, debt, damage. If the abundance is welcome, switch to いっぱい; if it's a substance smeared on you, switch to まみれ; and remember ずつ always trails its full quantity.

Key takeaways

だらけ = covered in an unwelcome abundance (傷だらけ, 間違いだらけ, 借金だらけ) — not neutral; use いっぱい for pleasant fullness and まみれ for coating substances (汗まみれ).
ずつ = even distribution, both "each/apiece" and "at a time" (三個ずつ, 少しずつ); it follows the whole quantity — 三個ずつ, not ×三ずつ個.
ほか(に) = "besides / another / the rest," works in positive sentences (ほかに質問は?).
以外 = "except / other than X," carves out a named item and often pairs with a negative (私以外は知らない).

Now practice Japanese

Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.

Start learning Japanese→