Author Archives: taekk

It’s, like, like 【なんか】

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Like, if there’s any equivalent to like, the word “like” in Japanese, it has to be like 「なんか」. 「なんか」 is a contraction of 「なにか」（何か）, which means “something”. However, 「なんか」 can be used to mean something very similar to the English “like”. Take a look at the example below:

ゲームなんか興味ないよ。- Not interested in something game.

First, you’ll notice the total lack of particles. You’ll see that a lot in casual speech. Another thing to notice here is that 「なんか」 essentially means “things like” in this example. This usage is distinct for 「なんか」 and you won’t see 「なにか」 used in the same way.

In fact, just like the word “like” in English, you can stick 「なんか」 just about anywhere and still make sense! Be careful though because this might become a habit and you might, like, start sounding like the way you do when, like, you use like, like everywhere.

なんかね。今日、電車に乗ったら、なんか変な人がいて・・・。なんかよくわかんない事をぶつぶつ言ってったよ。
Hey, like, when I got on the train today, there was like a strange person and like he was mumbling something I couldn’t understand.

If you add 「さ」 to the end of almost every phrase, you get what young people sound like in Japan nowadays. Sigh… so sad.

なんかさ。今日さ、電車に乗ったらさ、なんか変な人がいてさ。なんかよくわかんない事をぶつぶつ言ってったよ。
Hey, like, when I got on the train today, right? There was like a strange person, right? And like he was mumbling something I couldn’t understand.

Don’t Suffer Passively

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Some of you may have noticed I recycled content from my personal blog for my last post. For the 2, 3 people that actually read my blog, I offer my apologies as I’ve been busy with real life which sucks as usual. As reprieve, I’m actually going to write about a breaking insight into Japanese. You heard it here first.

There is no such thing as a suffering passive

You may have heard about a “suffering passive” from various textbooks or teachers. In fact, here’s an explanation right here.

Essentially, the concept is that when a passive verb is used, it can sometimes indicate that somebody has suffered from that action. The first two questions that should come to mind is, “What makes it suffering?” and “How can you tell?” The only explanation I’ve seen so far is, “it just is” and “guess”. In other words, no explanation whatsoever. But don’t worry, everything will be cleared up after reading this post.

The suffering passive is essentially a fabricated concept designed for non-native speakers so I won’t go into too many details. Ask any Japanese person with no experience in teaching Japanese and he/she will have no idea what you’re talking about. To put it quite simply, there’s nothing in the language that indicates somebody is suffering from a passive verb. The suffering is only suggested from the inherent properties of the passive form.

Let’s take a very simple sentence.

いいと言った。- Said, “good”.

Now let’s change it into the passive. (reference)

いいと言われた。- Was told, “good”.

The only difference between the two sentences is that the first performed an action (somebody said something) while in the second, the action was performed on someone (was told by somebody).

Now let’s look at the following sentence.

ケーキを全部食べられた。- All the cake was eaten.

Since the verb is passive, the action of eating all the cake was performed on somebody. Let’s say that somebody is myself. Then the sentence means that somebody ate all the cake and that action was done to me. If you think of it the right way, it makes perfect sense.

The Japanese word for “passive”, 「受身」 using the characters for “receive” and “body” expresses what the passive is in Japanese much more accurately. People are doing things to you and you have no choice but to take it like a bitch. The passive indicates that the action was not done by the subject but done unto the subject. In other words, the subject had no control or input on the action.

It is this property of the passive form that can create the sense of “suffering”. However, whether the subject is suffering or not depends entirely on the context. Am I suffering because all the cake was eaten by somebody without my say? Sure, probably… but then maybe not. There is nothing in the language that says. The only thing we know for sure is that the action of eating the cake was done by others, unto me, outside of my control.

Again, think in Japanese, and things seem much simpler and clearer.

英辞郎、a godsend for Japanese learners

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The 英辞郎 dictionary powered by SPACE ALC is a godsend for Japanese learners everywhere. At first, I was floored by the edict dictionary presented by Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC and its superiority to any printed Japanese/English dictionaries you can find in American bookstores. But, I have to admit, 英辞郎 is even more amazing mostly because the WWWJDIC does not have a English to Japanese dictionary. 英辞郎 is the only dictionary I know of that can give you a clue on how to take something you want to say in English and translate it to Japanese. You can enter English phrases and have a good chance at getting some suggestions for the Japanese. Unless you have a bilingual speaker around you can ask, this is the only tool I know of that can do this.

For instance, lets say you wanted to say, “They crowded into the train,” but were not sure how to say “crowded into” in Japanese. You know 「込んでいる」 means something is crowded but you’re not sure how to use that for crowding into something. If you search on 英辞郎 for “crowded into”, you get these following helpful suggestions.

# crowded into a room
《be ～》部屋に溢｛あふ｝れる
# crowded into a small area
狭い場所｛ばしょ｝になだれ込む
# crowded into a small room
《be ～》（大勢｛おおぜい｝の人が）狭い部屋｛へや｝に押し込められる

Now you can use these suggestions and google around to see which one most closely matches what you want to say.

Yet another example. I was wondering how to say my ears popped as I was riding an elevator. I tried a couple combinations like “ears pop” and hit pay dirt when I searched for “ear popped”. I got the following:

My ear popped.
気圧で耳がへんだ。

I don’t know why 「へん」 is in hiragana but I’m guessing it’s 「変」. Now, I can deduce that in Japanese, you can say your ears feel strange for changing altitudes and that there probably is no exact equivalent for the English “ear popping” phrase. Without 英辞郎, there’s really no way to look up this type of information without having a bilingual speaker handy. (Which I think is rare for most people.)

Even something as simple as trying to find out how to say “Big Dipper” in Japanese can be a major headache without this dictionary. The WWWJDIC returns no search results because it only searches the definitions of Japanese words (and poorly, I might add). With 英辞郎, you just pop in “big dipper” and there you go.

Big Dipper
【名】 《米》北斗七星

I’m surprised that this site is supposed to be for Japanese people because I think it’s far more useful to English-speaking people learning Japanese.

List of common greetings/expressions

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In Japanese, there are a lot of set expressions that are used in various situations. When you arrive at your house, you say one thing yet when you enter someone else’s home, you say something else. Other situations include when you start and finish eating or when you’re leaving your house. I remember when I was learning Japanese, I wished that I had a handy list of such expressions. (I looked on google and couldn’t find such a list) So as a service to the Internet community, I’ll post such a list here.

Eating
Because I’m such a fan of eating, we’ll first discuss the expressions used before and after you eat.

１．いただきます
– Said before a meal. Literally means, “I will receive” using the humble form of the verb “to receive”.
２．ごちそうさまでした／ごちそうさま
– Said after a meal. Literally means, “It was a feast”. 「ごちそうさま」 is a less formal version.

Greetings
You really ought to know these already if you’ve spend any time studying Japanese.

１．おはようございます／おはよう
– Good Morning.
2.　こんにちは （The 「は」 is pronounced 「わ」）
– Good Day.
３.　こんばんは （The 「は」 is pronounced 「わ」）
– Good Evening.

Expressions for coming and going
Here are some more expressions to use when you are coming or going, usually from home.

１．行ってきます
– You say this when you go out. Literally it means, “I’ll go and then come.”
2.　いってらっしゃい
– You say this to the person leaving if you are staying behind.
３.　ただいま
– Used when you come back home.
４.　お帰り／お帰りなさい
– Welcome back. お帰り is a less formal version

Work-related
Here are two more expressions for work-related occasion.

１．お疲れ／お疲れ様／お疲れ様です
– Most often used as a parting expression after work. If the person is leaving, you can also say the past tense: お疲れ様でした. お疲れさん is also a possibility though mostly only used by middle-aged men.
2.　ご苦労様／ご苦労様です
– This expression is used when somebody has finished doing some work for you. Be careful with this one because it puts you in a higher position of having requested the work. You can also say ご苦労さん though again, this is used mostly by middle-aged men.

Other expressions
Here’s some more that I couldn’t fit into it’s own category.

１．お休み／お休みなさい
– Good night. お休み is a less formal version.
2.　お邪魔します
– When you enter somebody else’s home. Literally means, “I will intrude”.
3.　失礼します
– Polite way to indicate you are leaving. Also used before hanging up on the phone. Literally means, “I’m doing a discourtesy.

Being hungry or full

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Just like I promised, I’m going to go over some actual expressions and some grammar instead of single-word explanations. In this post, I would like to go over how to say whether you’re hungry or full, obviously something that’s going to be useful, especially if you want to ask someone out for a bite to eat. The reason I’m covering this is because just learning the Japanese word for “full” and “hungry” and attaching 「です」 is not going to work. (Well, it works for “full” but not “hungry”.)

How to say you’re full
Saying you’re full is the simple part. The word most commonly used here is the adjective 「いっぱい」, which, as you might expect, means “full” in Japanese. Unless it’s understood from the context, you’ll also need the word for stomach which is most commonly 「お腹」（おなか）. So to simply say you are full, you would most likely say something like the following.

１）お腹がいっぱいです。- Stomach is full. (polite)
２）お腹がいっぱい。- Stomach is full. (casual)

Here’s a sample conversation.

Aさん）お代わりはいらない？- You don’t need another helping?
Bさん） もうお腹がいっぱいだから、大丈夫です。- Stomach is full already so it’s ok.

As an aside, if you want to sound fancy, you can also use 「満腹」（まんぷく） instead of 「いっぱい」. It also has a nuance of being a little fuller than just full as shown by this next example.

１）食った食った！もう満腹。- Ate, ate! Already stuffed.

How to say you’re hungry
Here’s the part where things get interesting. Unlike the Japanese word for “full”, which is an adjective same as English, there is no adjective for the word “hungry”. Well, technically there is the word 「空腹」（くうふく） which means “hungry”, but it is not normally used.

Instead, the verb 「空く」（すく） is normally used to say that your stomach was “emptied”. This means that we must use the past tense of the verb to indicate that the emptying already happened. In this case, it would be either 「空いた」 for casual or 「空きました」 for the polite form. (reference for past-tense, reference for polite past-tense)

１）お腹が空いた。- Stomach is emptied. (Got hungry)
２）お腹が空きました。- Stomach is emptied. (Got hungry)

You can also use the enduring-state form to say that your stomach is in the state of being emptied. The meaning is essentially the same but the nuance is different because the stomach already emptied and has stayed in that state. In other words, the hungriness has continued for a certain period. With the past tense, you get the sense that you just got hungry.

１）朝ご飯を食べなくて、お腹がすごく空いているよ。- I didn’t eat breakfast and I’m really hungry.

Finally, there is a more vulgar expression that is used for being hungry. It’s mostly for the rougher men-folk. Basically, instead of using 「お腹」 for stomach and 「空く」 for emptying, you use 「腹」（はら） and 「減る」（へる）. 「腹」 is simply a 「お腹」 without the honorific 「お」 and 「減る」 is another verb that simply means “to decrease”. The idea is basically the same as before.

１）いつ食べるの？俺、腹が減ったよ。- When eat? I’m hungry.

So let’s go back to what we were originally after, how to ask someone out for a bite to eat!

ボブ）　お腹空いた？どっか食べに行こうよ。
– You hungry? Let’s go somewhere to eat.

みき）　ごめん。もう食べたから、お腹いっぱいだよ。
– Sorry. I already ate so I’m not hungry.

一郎）　俺は腹が減ったんだけど。
– I’m hungry.

ボブ）　お前には聞いてないよ。
– I’m not asking you.

Main Vocabulary Covered
【お腹】（おなか） – (n) stomach
【腹】（はら） – (n) stomach (vulgar)
【いっぱい】 – (adj) full
【満腹】（まんぷく） – (adj) full stomach
【空く】（すく） – (v) to empty
【減る】（へる） – (v) to decrease

Oh crap, it’s 【やばい】

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I was thinking of writing a theme-based post with all sorts of useful expressions and examples but I’m too lazy so I decided to do another one like the last one and just talk about one word. This time, I’m going to introduce yet another slang that you’re going to hear all the time, especially among the younger crowds.

Let’s say you woke up at 8:00 in the morning. You look at the alarm clock and you realize that you are totally late for school. If you are a robot like those characters in Japanese textbooks, you might say something like 「どうしよう」 to mean “What shall I do?” (Lit: “How shall do?”). Now let’s say you’re a real human being, you’re late, and you’re in deep shit. In Japanese, you would very likely say, 「やばい！」.

A） 授業は、もう始まっちゃっているぜ。- Class has already started, man.
B） マジで？！やばい！- For real? Oh crap! (Lit: Dangerous!)

「やばい」 in the dictionary is defined as “dangerous” and that’s a good way to remember it as long as you keep in mind that it’s the “oh shit” variety and not the “watch your head” type of danger.

You can use 「やばい」 in all sorts of fun ways. For instance, if you want to warn your friends that that one girl is crazy and they should watch out, you might call her 「やばい」. Or you found out that you totally bombed a test. You can even use it in a positive sense such as calling something dangerous because it’s so delicious.

A） 試験はどうだった？- How was the test?
B） 全然ダメだった。- Totally no good.
A) それって、やばくない？- Isn’t that dangerous?
B) うん、やばい。- Yeah, I’m screwed.

A） そんなにうまいの？- Is it that tasty?
B） やばいよ。- It’s dangerous.
A) うそだ。- Yeah right. (Lit: It’s a lie)

Tune in next time when I’ll hopefully have more than just single vocabulary explanations!

Using 「マジ」 for real

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I’m back! Most of you probably don’t know this (or care) but I actually have a real full-time job. And this being Japan, full-time means more like 9 to 8 rather than 9 to 5. So those of you who think I sit at home in my boxers working on my computer, I’m actually stuffed in a crowded train disguised amongst hundreds of Japanese businessman. And since our project is running late on the release date, I’m working more like 9 to 10… and I don’t mean one hour. No really. マジで。 And I suppose that’s just as good as any lead-in to the topic at hand: “How to use マジ to talk about what’s real.”

What is マジ?

Once you start practicing Japanese with real people outside of the classroom, you’re bound to run into the word 「まじ」 probably sooner rather than later.

You probably already know 「本当」, the word you use when you want to say things like, “Really?” or “Yes, really.” But most of the time, you don’t want to sound like a wimp by saying things like, “Oh really? That’s nice.” What you really want to say is something like, “For real?” or “No way!” or maybe even, “You’re shitting me!”. That’s where 「まじ」 comes in. 「まじ」 is often said to be a shortened form of 「真面目」 which means “to be serious” (although there are other theories regarding its origin). 「まじ」 is also often written in katakana to show that great emphasis that 「マジ」 contains.

A: クリスは、彼女ができたんだって。 – I hear Chris got a girlfriend.
B: へ～、マジ？ – Heh, for real?

Using the 「で」 Particle for マジ

One thing to remember in terms of grammar is the use of particles. When you use 「本当」 as an adverb, you attach 「に」. However, for 「マジ」 you attach 「で」. There’s no logic that I can figure out to this but then we are talking about slang here.

A: 本当に忙しくて大変だったよ。 – I was really busy and it was tough
B: そうなの？ – Is that so?

A: あいつ、マジで退学しちゃったの？ – Did that guy really drop out of school?
B: うん、マジで。 – Yeah, for real.

Differences between 「本当」 and 「マジ」

Besides the difference in the particles, 「本当」 and 「マジ」 are quite different in their tone and usage. For instance, 「本当」 sounds cuter, more polite, and more feminine than 「マジ」 which sounds very rough and crude. In fact, you should take care in using 「マジ」 with your superiors. Having said that, I think 「マジ」 is a really useful word to know that you’re going to hear over and over again in daily conversations.

Difference between 【する】 and 【やる】

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Probably one of the first words you’ll learn is 「する」 which is the verb meaning “to do”. This is a very useful verb to know for obvious reasons. This is especially true in Japanese because many verbs are simply a noun combined with this verb.

For instance, the verb, “to research” is simply the noun for “research”　（研究） plus 「する」.

１）　半導体を研究する。 – Research semi-conductors.

Somewhere along your studies, you’re bound to come across another verb 「やる」, which also means, “to do”. The foremost question that should come to mind is, “How is it different from 「する」?” The answer lies in the examples below.

正）　ゲームをする。 – Do game.
正）　ゲームをやる。 – Do game.

正）　想像する。 – Imagine.
誤）　想像やる。 – [Wrong, you cannot use 「やる」 in this case]

「やる」 means “to do” only as a physical action. So while it’s ok to say 「やる」 for doing a game, you cannot use it with 「想像」 since mental processes do not involve any physical movement. (As long as you don’t get technical with the movement of electrical impulses in the brain or whatnot).

「やる」 means “to do” only as a physical action.

Another difference between 「する」 and 「やる」, is that 「やる」 can be used as a way to give things or do something for somebody while looking down at that person. 「する」 does not share this property.

１）　お前にこれをやるよ。- I give you this. (looking down)
２）　絶対に勝ってやる！ – I’ll win (beat you) for sure!

Going to Hanami

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Well, spring has arrived and the cherry blossoms have started blooming. The bloom this years has been quite late so it looks like this weekend is going to be the time to go see them. (At least for us Tokyo denizens) So let’s take a look at some expressions and vocabulary you might find useful for this time of year.

花見 – Hanami
Well, the first key word to remember is 花見（はなみ） which is the tradition of going out to parks or whatnot to see the cherry blossoms called 桜（さくら）. The cherry blossoms bloom only once a year so this is quite an event.

花見に行く
– Go to see cherry blossom.

You may be aware that 花見 is not just about taking a stroll in the park. It usually involves grabbing a spot to gather, chat, and drink alcohol. Famous parks like 上野公園（うえのこうえん） get so crowded this time of year that people often head out very early in the morning to grab a good spot for their group. Since the beginning of April is when most companies hire new graduates, the new hires are sometimes given the task of grabbing and holding a good spot for the rest of the employees should the company decided to do 花見. As an event, you can also “do” 花見 as seen below. In fact, either going or doing is acceptable.

花見をする
– Do Hanami.

Like many other festivals and traditions, you can also decide to attach the honorific 「お」 to the front of 「花見」 to get 「お花見」.

お花見へ行こう！
– Let’s go to Hanami!

お花見したい！
– Want to do Hanami!

While people usually go see 桜 during the day, other also like to go see them during the night in the backdrop of city lights called 「夜桜」（よざくら）

夜桜はとてもきれい。
– Cherry blossoms are very pretty at night.

You might want to check whether the cherry blossoms are actually blooming at the park you’re heading to by checking out a site like this one.

  1. つぼみ – buds
  2. 咲き始め（さきはじめ） – staring to bloom
  3. N分咲き – degree of bloom ranging from 1 (least) to 9 (most)
  4. 満開（まんかい） – full bloom

Personally, I’m thinking of checking out 井の頭公園. Apparently you can walk there from 吉祥寺, which is a cool little town for shopping accessible from the ＪＲ中央線. Why? Because this site lists it with the maximum 5 hearts as a romantic date spot!

Kanji with different readings

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There are a number of words that have more than one reading in Japanese. Sometimes, as shown by this webpage, it’s a matter of the reading changing over time. For example, I read somewhere that 「世論」 is supposed to be read as 「よろん」 but so many people misread it as 「せろん」 that it eventually emerged as an alternative reading. For words like this, choosing a reading is merely a matter of preference and depends on the popularity of the reading since the meaning is the same. However, some words have different readings and different meanings to go with them. We’ll look at two that I can think of right now (「頭」 and 「家」) and how you would identify the correct reading.

１．頭が痛いから早く家に帰りたい。
-I want to go home because my head hurts.

２．彼の家には14歳を頭に3人の子供がいる。
-In his house, there are 3 children, 14 being the oldest.

In the first sentence, 「頭」 is talking about the speaker’s head (the thing on your neck) and so we should read it as 「あたま」. However, in the second sentence, we are talking about the 14 year-old being at the head of the rest of the children. When we are using 「頭」 to mean “head” as in “chief”, or “the first”, we read it as 「かしら」. Amazingly, the English word for “head” also contains both meanings (though we don’t change the reading).

Finally, 「家」 can have two readings depending on whether the speaker is talking about his or her home or just a generic house owned by anybody. Your own home is read as 「うち」 which probably has something to do with 「内」（うち） meaning inside. The reading for a generic house is 「いえ」 (not to be confused with 「いいえ」).

So in order to figure out when to use which reading, 1) learn the difference in meaning, and then 2) look at the context of the sentence. So can you identify the correct readings for 「家」 in the examples sentences?