JLPT Level: N1, and the kanji are N1 and unlisted respectively.
Most of the time, this word is written in hiragana. But the kanji are funny, so I’m gonna talk about those too.
矢
On-yomi: ya
Kun-yomi: shi
Meaning: dart, arrow
鱈
On-yomi: setsu
Kun-yomi: tara
Meaning: codfish
So…put these two together and you get… “shooting codfish with arrows” and somehow that is supposed to mean “indiscriminately; blindly; at random; recklessly; thoughtlessly; excessively; profusely.”
I bet you’re ready for me to blow your mind with some anecdote from like 700 years ago about some old Japanese hermit who only had an arrow and spent everyday in the same stream trying to catch cod unsuccessfully, because he was an idiot and didn’t know that cod were an ocean fish and not a freshwater fish.
…But actually, these are just ateji. Ateji are kanji whose meaning have nothing to do with the word they are used in. Their pronunciation just conveniently matches the word. So “arrow” and “codfish” have absolutely nothing to do with yatara and its meaning.
So we can put these two kanji together to get the literal meaning of “reaching the bottom.” How does that come to mean “cannot possibly,” or “no matter how”?
Well, I did some expert googling but was unable to find anything. :(
My personal opinion, though, is that it’s either of two things:
“I am certain to the bottom of my heart that this is impossible.”
Even if you reach down within yourself and do your best, it is impossible.”
Those are just guesses, and I’m not a native speaker, but that’s my take.
