Understanding 「いいくらいの...」


In

> 僕は日本一と言っても **いいくらいの** 真面目な優等生だよ

I'm trying to understand

  1. What いいくらい ("approximately good"?) is doing in the sentence.
  2. Whether の is acting as a nominalizer of いいくらい or as a possessive particle.

My current translation attempt is

> As for me, they'll even (も) say I'm Japan's best <いいくらい>...am a serious
> honor roll student.

I'm tempted to translate it as

> As for me, they'll even (も) say I'm Japan's best and most serious honor roll
> student.

but this is (i) ignoring いいくらい and (ii) treating の as a possessive particle
(which doesn't make sense since 日本一と言っても isn't a noun on the left side of の).




  1. You are parsing the sentence in the wrong way. The いい part belongs to 言っても. 日本一と言ってもいい here means "be able to be called the number one in Japan."

  2. の is a possessive particle. 日本一と言ってもいいくらい modifies 真面目な優等生. Also, くらい doesn't mean "approximately" but means "to the extent." In this sense, you can replace くらい with ほど if you prefer.

To summarize,

> 僕は日本一と言ってもいいくらいの真面目な優等生だよ
>
> I am a serious top student, top enough to be called the number one in Japan.

