ピンキリ

How do you say, "ピンキリ" in English?

The term, "ピンキリ"  comes from the phrase, "ピンからキリまで," which can be roughly translated as, "the best and the worst; the top and the bottom; there are many different kinds of [something] and the [what] ranges from the superb/expensive/etc. to the terrible/cheap/etc."

In today's class, we were talking about the prices of opal jewelry sold in Australia. I asked the student if opal jewelry was expensive? She said that the prices range from cheap to expensive depending on the size and quality of the opal jewelery itself (オパールの値段はピンキリです。)

In English, be sure to explain clearly what is ピンキリ. You need to tell what is being described:

• prices range from cheap to expensive
• quality ranges from poorly made to high quality

In English, we can apply this pattern to a much wider range of subjects:

• His jokes range from really stupid to extremely funny.
• There are all kinds of professors at my college from boring to intellectually stimulating.
• TV commercials can be anything from bewildering to entertaining.

If you have any other ideas on how to apply the concept of ピンキリ to an English sentence, please feel free to ask me in class!

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ANMI English Tips and Tools by Chip Sorensen 
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.1 Japan License. 
Based on a work at anmienglishtools.blogspot.com.

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