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soutou (with both o's lengthened: soh-toh) is a word you regularly hear in Japanese conversation that is usually used much like "rather" or "pretty" (e.g., "rather big," pretty fast," etc.)" in English.

There are actually more meanings than that to soutou, which appear in most dictionaries before the "pretty" meaning.

One meaning of soutou is "equivalent to," or "much like" such as in "Shouting "Banzai!" in Japanese is much like shouting "Hurray!" in English." Banzai o sakebu koto ha eigo de Hurray o sekebu koto ni soutou suru." ??????????????????????????

Another meaning is "commensurate with," or "fitting," such as "A punishment that fits the crime" Hanzai ni soutou suru batsu. ????????
Or it can mean "suitable" in the sense of "A role suitable to someone with her level of experience" Kanojo no keiken ni soutou suru yakuwari ?????????????

And if you look at the kanji, these "commensurate" and "fitting" meanings are clearly the original meanings, as the sou (?) is for "mutual" and the tou (?) for "appropriate."

However, as I wrote above, in casual conversation you are much more likely to hear soutou with the meaning of "rather," "quite," or "pretty."

While this is by no means a rule, I have observed t...