要するに|ようするに
- 1In short / to sum up: condenses a preceding explanation into its main conclusion.Ex. 1
- 2The point is / what you're saying is: cuts through to someone's real meaning or intention.Ex. 2
SentenceA complete sentence. It can end in a verb, an adjective, or a noun + だ／です.
雨が降る・昨日は寒かった・明日は休みです
Often paired with a sentence-final ということだ、わけだ、んだ (e.g. example 1)
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Neutral in register and common in both conversation and writing. It is used when wrapping up a long or roundabout explanation, getting to the heart of a matter, or putting a complicated term into plain words. Compared with つまり, it puts more weight on condensing and summarizing. すなわち is a more formal, written connector for exact restatement.
Note that 要するに comes at the start of the summarizing clause, not at the end of the sentence.
Note that using 要するに to sum up someone else's words can sound blunt or dismissive, as in example 2.
Do not use 要するに to introduce new information; what follows should restate the gist of something already said or implied.
- 1.つまりN3Besides summing up a conclusion, 「つまり」 can rephrase, including giving an appositive explanation of a noun (e.g. 「母の弟、つまりおじ」), and 「要するに」 cannot replace it there. When summing up a conclusion the two are often interchangeable, though 「つまり」 has a weaker summarizing tone.
- 2.すなわちN3「すなわち」 is literary and formal and focuses on objective rephrasing. Between nouns as an appositive (「A、すなわちB」), 「要するに」 is not a good substitute; at the start of a sentence to sum up, the two are similar, but 「すなわち」 rarely carries a note of impatience.
- 3.ということだN3「ということだ」 attaches to the plain form at the end of a sentence, while 「要するに」 is an adverb placed before the summarized content, so although they often pair up when summing up, their positions differ and they are not interchangeable. 「ということだ」 can also report hearsay ("I hear that...").
- 4.というわけだN1「というわけだ」 follows the plain form at sentence end to draw a conclusion from the facts just stated or explain how something came about, whereas the adverb 「要するに」 precedes the summarized content and focuses on distilling the main point or exposing what the other person really means. The two can be used together, but their positions differ, so they are not interchangeable.
- 5.わけだN3「わけだ」 goes at sentence end, after the plain form and similar forms, to express a logically derived conclusion or a sense of "no wonder," while the adverb 「要するに」 precedes the content to distill its main point. Their positions differ, so they cannot be swapped, but they often pair up as 「要するに…わけだ」.
つまり and すなわち restate or clarify, and すなわち is formal and written. 要するに emphasizes boiling content down to its gist. ということだ, というわけだ and わけだ are sentence-final expressions of conclusion that often combine with 要するに rather than replace it.
