Lesson 49: Approximately ころ, くらい, たり, and limits with まで, ほど, すぎる
ころ is a noun that basically means "approximate time". You run into Xのころに a lot. This can either be a conjunction "around the time of X", or a noun "the general time when X" with the に particle attached.
When it acts as a suffix, ころ is voiced, becoming ごろ. ごろ attaches to a noun that takes a "specific point in time" (not a length of time) and makes it be vague and approximate. In any case, it shouldn't be used with nonspecific spans of time that are already vague.
くらい・ぐらい takes a span and makes it approximate. 三か月ぐらい basically means "for around three months". くらい can also be used to compare things like より, and says that they're about the same.
たり is used to list statements in an inexhaustive and nonspecific way, much like the listing particle や. It attaches the same way as the past tense, so it can come out as だり, and sometimes it's treated like <past>+り.
まで essentially means "up to" or "until". Unlike "until" (like "until friday"), まで does not explicitly exclude what it marks.
月曜日から金曜日まで
Monday through friday (including monday and friday)
まで can be used with verb phrases, but it can only be attached to informal, tenseless statements. In other words, they have to be plain and not past tense.
Reality check: までに is a compound particle meaning "at some time before" rather than "to the point through".
ほど essentially means "as" in terms of a comparison. For some left-hand arguments of ほど, the statement being compared has to be negative. In such comparisons, ほど acts as a limit on how well the statement applies.
君ほど強くない Not as strong as you
In positive statements where ほど attaches to an "amount", it's approximate.
半分ほど食べた I ate around half.
Compounds like それほど act as their own thing and have different semantics than their parts combined. それほど means something like "that much".
過ぎる すぎる is a verb and means "exceed" or "surpass". As an auxiliary verb, すぎる means "too much" or an excess, and attaches to the verb-sticky form.
食べすぎる Eating too much
優しすぎる Too kind