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Introduction

So no one understands your Japanese? Worse yet, you don’t understand theirs. You’ve planned your Saturday night, spent a week studying one phrase, and you can’t wait to use it. You’re at a club, armed with the latest edition of Learn Japanese in 27-and-a-1/2-Minutes-a-Day for moral support, and you lay the phrase on that good-looking local. What happens? The response isn’t like in the book. Why?

Basically, because the Japanese don’t play by the book when it comes to their daily language, just as Westerners don’t. So what can you do? Well, you could give up and decimate your chances of getting with anybody, or you could learn to speak real Japanese.

Just as we speak in a relaxed, colloquial manner, so do the Japanese. On trains, in bars, during ball games, or when getting intimate with their partners, they all use shortcuts—it’s only natural! If you want to talk the way the Japanese do, then you need to know what to say, how to say it, and when to say it.

And better still, you’ll need to know the cultural context it all happens in. We’ve built in lots of little morsels to help you paint a picture of the real Japan as you go along—this book will be your roadmap on the path to love and satisfaction in Japan! Right then? Okay, let’s go!

INFORMATION

It’s tricky to teach the proper pronunciation of a foreign language in a book, so we’re not going to try, hoping you’ve already got the basics. To help you out, though, we’ve joined two and sometimes three or four words together, to make compound words or phrases that are easier to pronounce. Most of them are hyphenated to highlight merged words, to emphasize the slang suffixes and particles, and to facilitate pronunciation and memorization.

For example, the components of fuzakenaide-yo are: fuzake (from fuzakeru), naide (command form of arimasen), and the (quite forceful) suffix -yo. We’ve written the compound phrase fuzakenaide-yo so that you won’t pause while pronouncing it, but say it entirely in one breath; a pause would weaken the impact.

We’re sure that you’re familiar with the polite question forms des-ka and mas-ka Forget them. Except for a few needed for talking to strangers, requesting services, etc., the rest have been dismissed. In informal speech, rising intonation takes the place of these forms. Thus, the final syllables of all words and phrases in this book ending with a question mark should be pronounced with the kind of rising intonation you give to the question “Right?”

Slang that is too faddish is not included in this book, because it comes and goes too quickly. If you use old slang, the reaction of your Japanese date will likely be, “He thinks he’s being cool but nobody says that anymore. Hah, hah!” So we’ve avoided hot slang—if it’s out of date people will think that you’re funny or square. But feel free to use what you pick up on the street.

VARIATIONS

The terms “boy” and “girl” are used throughout the book, but we’re definitely referring to the post-puberty phase here. To eliminate the embarrassing problem of boys using girls’ words or vice versa, we’ve indicated words suitable for use by girls and boys with the symbols ♀ and ♂ respectively. Words and phrases not marked can be used by both sexes, and (b g) means a boy should use it when talking to a girl. For example:

Don’t be upset.

Make me warm.

You 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 vi 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 pronounced yū (Plain positive forms generally don’t change as they’re pretty simple already).

The most common slang final particle is ne , often lengthened to n ē. Only partly fictitious, it seems to us that when a newborn Japanese baby is shown off for the first time, someone will say Kawaii-nē? (Isn’t he/she cute?), and inevitably the flock of admirers will all say Nē ! (Oh yes!). From such early exposure, the child is doomed to utter n ē for the rest of his/her life.

Nē gives a familiar yet emphatic ending, usually to rhetorical questions, and lengthening it adds more emphasis. With a falling intonation it’s more of an explanation. It isn’t often said with a rising intonation, but can be said in a high pitch for emphasis. Girls prefer ne and nē, and guys have an alternative, na, which is used in the same way. But as we said before, the gender (speech) gap is narrowing, especially around women, guys will often use ne .

Other handy sentence endings include yo used to emphasise that “I’m telling you what I think (and you should do this).” Wa is often added by women to soften phrases, and you’ll see it throughout this book. If you prefer a more blunt style, don’t use it, or use yo instead. -noda (less formally -nda ) makes the sentence a clear explanation, with a feeling of “that’s the way it is.”

These can be combined liberally. For example, you’re trying to decide which movie to see, and someone is being quite pushy about their choice. To be clear that you’ve already seen it and once was enough, you can say Mō mitan-dayone

Zo and ze can be added (usually by guys) to give instructions. Zo means “let’s do...” as in Yoshi, iku-zo (Right, let’s go), similar to but slightly harsher than ikō Ze is a very strong command form, e.g. Iku-ze! (Move it!) Finally, -kke is a handy ending, expressing either uncertainty or forgetfulness Nan-datta-kke? (What was it again...?)

The meaning of some phrases may be changed from a statement to a question by a rising final intonation, and these phrases are marked by diamonds (). For example:

Haven’t seen you around for a while.

With a rising intonation, the sentence becomes “Haven’t seen you around for a while, have I?”

And which parts of the phrase you stress also make a big difference—stressing a yo emphasizes that you’re pushing your opinion. Stressing the sō in sō-dane/sō desu-ne (that’s right) means you agree more strongly.

Finally, put emotion into your voice. You might think that the Japanese spoken around you is emotionless because it seems so fast, but nothing could be further from the truth. Put feeling into your voice as you would in English, and your message will be loud and clear.

THE LAST WORD

Does all of this sound really daunting? It shouldn’t! Think of this introduction as a reference page for your journey through the Japanese-speaking world. Just keep these points in mind, and you’ll find this book a valuable resource to speed your street-Japanese skills along.