～どころか
far from / let alone
～どころか takes what the listener might expect and flatly contradicts it. It attaches to a noun or a plain-form verb or adjective and maps to English “far from” or “let alone”.
Unlike a neutral correction with ～ではなくて (“not X but Y”), ～どころか carries emphasis and sometimes surprise: the reality is on a completely different level from the expectation.
1. Far from X — actually the opposite
The word before どころか names the expectation; what follows states the surprising reality, often the exact opposite.
安いどころか高い。
“Far from being cheap, it's expensive.”
- 安い（やすい）= cheap
- どころか = far from (being)
- 高い（たかい）= expensive
2. Let alone X — not even the easier thing
～どころか also denies something big by pointing out that even something much smaller is not true. The second clause often uses も / さえ with a negative.
弟は漢字どころか、ひらがなも読めない。
“My little brother can't even read hiragana, let alone kanji.”
- 弟（おとうと）= younger brother
- は = topic marker
- 漢字（かんじ）= kanji
- どころか = let alone
- ひらがな = hiragana
- も = even (here)
- 読めない（よめない）= cannot read
How to form it
Noun / plain-form verb / い-adjective + どころか
- 安い（やすい）= cheap → 安いどころか（やすいどころか）= far from cheap
- 漢字（かんじ）= kanji → 漢字どころか（かんじどころか）= let alone kanji
- 寝る（ねる）= to sleep → 寝るどころか（ねるどころか）= far from sleeping
Key idea
～どころか knocks down an expectation and replaces it with something more extreme: “X? Not at all. The truth is Y, and Y is on a whole different level.”
Built on the same stem
Updated .