Essential Japanese Vocabulary. Akira Miura

Essential Japanese Vocabulary

verbs. Verbs that express states rather than actions are stative verbs. Iru いる “(someone) is (somewhere)” and aru ある “(something) is (somewhere)” are examples of this category.

JAPANESE ACCENT

Accent marks are used in this book. They are, as a rule, used in the entry headings only, e.g., Ō

Unlike English, which has a stress accent, Japanese has a pitch accent. In Japanese words, each syllable is spoken either high or low. If the first syllable is low, the second is always high, and if the first syllable is high, the second is always low. In this book, the mark “

” indicates a rise in pitch, and the mark “

I, a four-syllable word, should be pronounced low-high-high-low, and KI, the last syllable before the fall, is the accented syllable. Some words are left completely unmarked, e.g., KIMONO. Unmarked words are accentless (or unaccented) words, i.e., words that do not have a fall in pitch. In accentless words, the first syllable is always low, but the remaining syllables are all high, and there is no fall in pitch even when the words are followed by a particle. For example, kimono wa is pronounced:

ki ^{mono wa}

Words that end with an accented syllable (e.g., A

TAMA

(accented) and KIMONO (accentless) have exactly the same pitch pattern when pronounced alone, but when followed by a particle (e.g., wa) they are pronounced differently, as follows:

atama wa → a ^tama wa

kimono wa → ki ^{mono wa}

Note that wa in atama wa is low while wa in kimono wa is high.

ROMANIZATION

The system of romanization used in this book is the popular Hepburn system. There are, however, some differences that should be mentioned. In this book, ん is always written n, even before m, p, and b. When n should be pronounced independently of a vowel or y that follows it, an apostrophe is inserted to indicate the fact. Long vowels are generally shown with macrons. Long vowels, however, are not indicated in the proper names that appear in the bibliography.

OTHER CONVENTIONS

An asterisk is used in this book to mark incorrect utterances. A question mark at the beginning of a sentence indicates unnaturalness or awkwardness.

Abiru 浴びる to take a bath, shower

Japanese people who have spent a number of years in English-speaking countries such as the United States often end up having their spoken Japanese affected by English. One example of this that I once heard was *Mō shawā o torimashita ka *もうシャワーを取りましたか, a direct translation of “Have you taken a shower yet?” In authentic Japanese, the sentence should be Shawā o abimashita ka シャワーを浴びましたか, using the verb abiru 浴びる rather than toru 取る.

“Take a bath” also can be furo o abiru 風呂をあびる, although another expression, furo ni hairu 風呂に入る, is probably more common.

EXAMPLE:

Nihonjin wa furo o abiru (or furo ni hairu) no ga hontō ni suki da.

日本人は風呂を浴びる（風呂に入る)のが本当に好きだ。

The Japanese really love taking baths.

Abunai 危ない dangerous

Abunai 危ない most often means “dangerous, risky, hazardous.”

EXAMPLES:

(1) Yopparai-unten wa abunai.

酔っ払い運転は危ない。

Drunk driving is dangerous.

(2) Kodomo no matchi-asobi wa abunai.

子供のマッチ遊びは危ない。

Children’s playing with matches is hazardous.

Abunai! 危ない! may be used as an exclamation in situations where “Look out!” or “Watch out!” would be called for in English. For example, if you see someone walking into the path of an oncoming car, you shout out, Abunai! Other examples of adjectives used to give warning are Urusai! うるさい! and Yakamashii! やかましい! (lit., “[You are] noisy!”), both meaning “Be quiet!” or “Shut up!” (see URUSAI).

chi

kochi あちこち here and there

Achikochi あちこち, short for achirakochira あちらこちら, looks very much like English “here and there,” except that the order is reversed, i.e., achikochi literally would be “there and here.” Although achikochi and “here and there” are quite similar in meaning, there is a slight difference. Achikochi seems to cover a wider area than “here and there,” as in the following example.

EXAMPLE:

Achikochi sagashita keredo mitsukaranakatta.

あちこち捜したけれど見つからなかった。

I looked far and wide but couldn’t find it.

There is another variant, atchikotchi あっちこち, which is a little more colloquial than achikochi あちこち.

Agaru 上がる to go up

The basic meaning of agaru 上がる is “to go up.”

EXAMPLE:

(1) Mata gasorin no nedan ga agatta.

またガソリンの値段が上がった。

The price of gasoline has gone up again.

Entering a Japanese-style house as a guest is also agaru 上がる because it is an act of “going up.” When you enter a Japanese home, you first step into the genkan 玄関, or vestibule. There you take off your shoes and take a step up to the floor level of the house. The act of stepping into the vestibule is hairu 入る “to go in,” but the act of stepping up to the floor level of the house is agaru 上がる “to take a step up.” That is why the Japanese host says to a visitor:

EXAMPLE:

(2) Dōzo oagari kudasai.

どうぞお上がりください。

Please come in (lit., step up).

Sentence

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