～がたい — Hard To Do; Hard To Accept
Attaches to a verb stem to mean an action is extremely difficult or nearly impossible — often because of a psychological or emotional barrier rather than physical difficulty. It appears in set phrases like 信じがたい (hard to believe) and 忘れがたい (unforgettable). More literary and formal than にくい.
Structure
[Verb ます-stem] + がたい
Examples
彼がそんな嘘をつくとは、信じがたい。
Kare ga sonna uso o tsuku to wa, shinjigatai.
It's hard to believe that he would tell such a lie.
信じ (stem of 信じる) + がたい = difficult to believe
あの日の光景は、今でも忘れがたい。
Ano hi no koukei wa, ima demo wasuregatai.
The scene from that day is unforgettable even now.
忘れ (stem of 忘れる) + がたい = hard to forget
彼の態度は理解しがたいものだった。
Kare no taido wa rikai shigatai mono datta.
His attitude was something hard to comprehend.
理解し + がたい expresses difficulty grasping something mentally
• Register: formal/literary; frequent in writing and set phrases. • Used mainly for abstract/psychological difficulty (believe, forgive, understand), not physical actions like walking. • Read as 'gatai' (voiced) after the stem.
Commonly confused with
The JLPT rarely asks whether you recognise a pattern — it asks which of several similar patterns fits. These are the ones ～がたい is tested against.
vs にくい
にくい covers general/physical difficulty (書きにくいペン); がたい is more literary and about emotional/logical impossibility (信じがたい).
vs かねる
かねる is a polite 'I can't/won't do it'; がたい objectively describes an action as hard to do or accept.
More modal expressions
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