English Translation
Must I answer all the questions?
How do I do know when I should use 全く（まったく）vs. 全て （すべて）? Or are they relatively interchangeable?
@TisYanni
全く (まったく) is an adverb (meaning: “completely) while 全ての (すべての) is an adjective. They are not grammatically interchangeable. Also, 全く (completely) is qualitative (10 on a 1-10 scale) while 全ての is quantitative (10 out of 10). You can solve the first mismatch by inserting の after 全く, but the second one remains as noninterchangeable factor.
For example,
- メアリーの証言は全くのでたらめだ。= Mary’s testimony is a complete bogus one.
- メアリーの証言は全てでたらめだ。= All of Mary’s testimonies are bogus.
Sentence 2 suggests that Mary gave her testimonies several times probably for different cases. And all of them (10 testimonies out of all 10) were “to some extent” fabricated. Maybe some facts she gave are true, but each of the all 10 testimonies has at least one false claim.
On the other hand, Sentence 1 is more likely to be interpreted as Mary giving only one testimony. And all of her words in the single testimony are untrue.
- トムと私の意見は全く同じだ。= Tom and I completely agree on this subject.
- トムと私の意見は全て同じだ。= Tom and I agree on all of the subjects.
Sentence 3 is talking about a single issue. Sentence 4 is about multiply issues.
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