More Making Out in Japanese. Todd Geers

More Making Out in Japanese

look beautiful.

But before you go thinking that boys’ and girls’ speech patterns are absolutely divided, stop a minute. Don’t be shocked if you hear a girl using a quite masculine phrase (or vice versa). The gender gap in Japanese speech is narrowing, especially among young people, and there’s nothing wrong with “borrowing” for impact or emphasis. We’ve made the distinction as a general guide to usage.

One thing you’ll notice as you speak with the Japanese (especially if you move around) is that people’s speech patterns vary wildly. We’re not just talking about slang here, there are also big differences between regions and social groups. It’s impossible for us to include all the variations (more on the regional ones later) of the phrases in this book, so we’ve gone with a standard Japanese (hyōjungo

) style, which everyone will understand and which you can adapt to the area you’re living in.

Adaptation is really important—the phrases here might seem too harsh to some ears and too soft to others. Take your cues from the speech and reactions of people around you. If they warm up to the way you’re talking, great, otherwise think about the way they’re taking it and adjust. If all else fails, ask— foreigners aren’t expected to know everything!

JAPANESE–ENGLISH–JAPANESE

You’ll have seen above that we’ve written Japanese phrases in two ways—in Rōmaji (

–Western script, with lines above some vowels meaning long sounds) and in Japanese script with furigana (phonetic hiragana

above the Chinese kanji

) for an added challenge as you get better. But many phrases are written in another phonetic alphabet, katakana

Katakana are mostly used for foreign words, and there are many of them in this book —for example, “batteries” are batterii

Among other things, they’re also used to write a few Japanese superlatives, such as chō

(amazing-ly/fantastic-ally).

When using katakana, life gets a bit tricky when you hit the limitations of the Japanese language. It has only one final consonant “n,” so when the Japanese pronounce English words with other consonant endings, they have to tack on a vowel, usually a “u.” “Game” becomes g ēmu

“bed” becomes beddo

etc. With no final r sound, they usually use a long a—for example locker becomes rokkā

And since there is no l sound at all, r is used instead.

There are few sounds that the Japanese can pronounce, so they’ve created new ways of writing them. A “we” (as in “web”) is written

and v sounds are written as

followed by a katakana vowel, as in va

etc.—though the ability to pronounce the v varies greatly, especially between generations!

The Japanese enjoy scattering English words in their speech and you should do the same. With a little practice, it’s easy to get the hang of how to “katakana-ize” an English word, that is, to pronounce it the way a Japanese would, strange as it might seem at first. As a foreigner, you’d be expected to use katakana words—so don’t hold back!

As a reference point, here’s a chart of the 45 kana in each alphabet, with the hiragana listed first under each sound. There are various ways of writing some kana in Rōmaji (e.g. tu or tsu)—we’ve gone with those closest to the sound.

There are a few more variations to watch out for. Notables are the use of ha as the subject particle, in which case it’s read wa (such as watashi-wa

), and verbs ending in -masu

which we’ve romanised to -mas, because that’s how you say it. You’ll pick them up as you go along.

BEING CHOOSY

There are plenty of phrases for which the Japanese have alternatives, as in any language. We’ve listed the phrases in a rough order from least to most casual, also getting more vulgar as they become more casual. If what you’re saying doesn’t seem to fit the mood, again, adapt to the speech of the people around you!

In the book, we’ve included the Japanese words for “me” and “you” in many phrases. In practice, they are often left out, unless particular clarification is needed, but until you can instinctively understand who is being referred to, it’s best to use them. If you do, there are a range of words available, not just the gender-neutral watashi

(with its super-formal counterpart watakushi

) and anata

that textbooks love.

For girls, there’s atashi

and for guys there’s boku

and ore

. To say “you,” girls can say anata

or anta

and guys can say kimi

or omae

In this book, we’ve stuck with anata and kimi, because these are the “safest” for everyday conversation. Omae and ore in particular are very harsh, and can put people off. Until you know when best to use these words (again judge by the speech of the Japanese around you), steer clear!

STRESSED OUT OVER ENDINGS

One thing that we have to say is that in Japanese, how you say something can have more meaning that what you say. Think about it: when you’re sharing an intimate moment, you can convey many emotions by sounding caring and serious, on top of what you’re actually saying. Some phrases can be changed from statements to questions just by the tone or particle at the end... the list goes on. Here’s a run-down of some slang endings and tonal tricks.

For starters, the rules say that plain negative verbs end in - nai (e.g. wakaranai

I don’t understand/know). But you’ll hear other forms, like -n, as in wakaran

or shiran

(I dunno) or special corruptions like wakannai

and iu Скачать книгу