～だらけ
covered in / full of
～だらけ attaches directly to a noun and means that something is covered all over with or riddled with that thing. It almost always describes something unwelcome: mud, mistakes, scratches, dust.
In English it maps to “covered in ~” or “full of ~” with a complaining tone. Unlike ～でいっぱい, which is a neutral “full of” and can describe good things, ～だらけ implies an unpleasant amount of something, everywhere.
1. Physically covered in something
Use ～だらけ when a surface is messily covered with something. Before another noun it takes の (泥だらけの靴 = mud-covered shoes).
服が泥だらけになった。
“My clothes got covered in mud.”
- 服（ふく）= clothes
- が = subject marker
- 泥だらけ（どろだらけ）= covered in mud
- になった = became (turned into that state)
2. Full of mistakes or problems
～だらけ also works for abstract things that appear over and over, like errors or problems. The tone is critical: there are far too many of them.
このレポートは間違いだらけだ。
“This report is full of mistakes.”
- この = this
- レポート = report
- は = topic marker
- 間違いだらけ（まちがいだらけ）= full of mistakes
- だ = is (plain copula)
How to form it
Noun + だらけ
- 泥（どろ）= mud → 泥だらけ（どろだらけ）= covered in mud
- 間違い（まちがい）= mistake → 間違いだらけ（まちがいだらけ）= full of mistakes
- 傷（きず）= scratch → 傷だらけ（きずだらけ）= covered in scratches
Key idea
～だらけ paints a picture of something undesirable scattered all over a surface or all through a thing. If you would say it with a sigh in English, ～だらけ is the right choice.
Other N2 grammar
Updated .