日本語道場

Nihongo Dojo — N3 → N2

Grammar

N3

～ことに

~koto ni

to my (surprise/regret)...

When to use it

Use ～ことに to front-load the speaker's emotional evaluation before stating the fact itself — "to my regret, ...", "surprisingly, ...". It is a written/formal framing device common in reports, minutes and business email, where it signals your stance toward news before delivering it. Only a closed set of emotion words works (残念な, 驚いた, 幸い, ありがたい, 困った, 嬉しい, 意外な); it cannot take arbitrary adjectives.

Formation

  • Verbs: past (た) form + ことに — 驚いたことに、困ったことに、呆れたことに (limited to verbs of emotional reaction; non-past is not used)
  • i-adjectives: plain form + ことに — 嬉しいことに、ありがたいことに、悲しいことに
  • na-adjectives: ～な + ことに — 残念なことに、意外なことに、幸いなことに
  • Nouns: not used directly (幸い・残念 pattern as na-adjectives; noun + のことに is a different structure)
  • Emphatic variant ～ことには appears in stiffer written prose; 幸いにも・驚くべきことに are near-equivalents
  • The clause that follows states a fact, so it does not take a command, request or volitional ending

Examples

  • Regrettably, we have decided to pass on your proposal this time.

  • To our surprise, a competitor announced the same feature first.

  • Thankfully, the client placed an additional order with us.

  • Unfortunately, it seems approval won't come through this month.

  • Fortunately, there has been no impact on the delivery date.