Vocabulary and phrases
Practical guides on speaking, grammar, pronunciation, listening, and study planning, written for learners who want to use Japanese in real life.
Vocabulary and phrases · Page 25
Sugoi: What It Means and When It Sounds Childish
Sugoi means impressive, but it also means intense, extreme, and in its oldest sense frightening. The word is genuinely useful, and it is also the fastest way to make fluent-sounding Japanese sound like a teenager's.
13 min readKawaii: More Than Cute, and How It Is Really Used
Kawaii covers far more ground than cute. It runs from small-and-endearing to stylish-and-appealing, and it is applied to objects, food, handwriting and behaviour as readily as to babies and cats.
11 min readChotto: The Word That Means A Little, No, and Excuse Me
Chotto is one of the first words a learner meets and one of the last they fully understand. It measures a small amount, but it also softens, interrupts, and says no without ever reaching the word no.
13 min readDouzo and Doumo: Two Small Words That Do a Lot of Work
Dōzo and dōmo look like a matching pair, and in conversation they often are. One of them gives, the other receives, and between them they cover a surprising share of ordinary Japanese politeness.
13 min readTotemo, Sugoku, Kanari: How to Say Very in Japanese
Every learner arrives with totemo and uses it for everything from mildly pleasant to genuinely overwhelming. Japanese has a whole ladder of degree words, and the rung you pick tells the listener how strongly you feel and how formal you are being.
15 min readMaji, Gachi, and Mecha: Japanese Intensity Slang
These are the words young Japanese speakers reach for when normal adverbs are not strong enough. They are easy to pick up from a drama and easy to say in the wrong room.
13 min readZenzen and Betsu ni: Two Words That Sound Colder Than You Mean
Both of these words are easy to learn and easy to misfire with. Used flat, they can make a friendly learner sound bored or annoyed to a Japanese listener.
14 min readShikata ga Nai: Saying It Cannot Be Helped in Japanese
Shikata ga nai is one of the first long phrases learners pick up, and one of the easiest to misplace. This guide shows where it lands well, where it lands badly, and what to say instead.
12 min readMottainai: The Word Behind Japan's Attitude to Waste
Mottainai is the word a Japanese speaker reaches for when something good is about to be thrown away or left unused. It carries a small pang of regret that the English word waste does not.
13 min readNatsukashii: The Nostalgia Word English Cannot Translate
Natsukashii is one of the first words learners recognise and one of the last they use correctly. The problem is not the meaning; it is where the word points.
11 min readKakeru: The Most Overloaded Verb in Japanese
Kakeru looks like twenty unrelated verbs sharing a sound. It is really one idea applied to twenty different objects, and once you see the idea the collocations stop being a memory test.
15 min readTsukeru and Tsuku: Attach, Turn On, Arrive, Notice
Tsukeru and tsuku are the same idea seen from two sides: you put something onto a surface, or something ends up on it. Almost every meaning in the dictionary follows from that.
16 min readPractical guides
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