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Introduction

So no one understands your Japanese? Worse yet, you don’t understand theirs. You’ve spent an entire week studying one phrase and you can’t wait to use it. The big moment arrives—you’re armed with the latest edition of Learn Japanese in 27-and-a-½-Minutes-a-Day for moral support—and you lay the phrase on some unsuspecting soul. What happens? The response isn’t like the one in your book. Why?

Basically, because the Japanese don’t “play by the book” just as Westerners don’t “play by the book” when it comes to their daily language. So what to do? Well, you could quit and give up studying Japanese, or you could learn to speak real Japanese.

Just as we speak in a relaxed, colloquial manner, so do the Japanese. On trains, in clubs, during ball games, or with friends, they all use shortcuts in their speech. If you want to speak the way the Japanese speak, 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 in this book to help you build a picture of the real Japan as you go along. 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 fuzake-nai-deyo (ふざけ ないでよ) are: fuzake (from fuzakeru), nai-de (command form of arimasen), and the (quite forceful) suffix -yo. We’ve written the compound phrase fuzake-nai-deyo 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 ですか and mas-ka ますか. 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 we give to the question “Right?”

Slang that is too faddish is not included in this book, because such words come and go too quickly. If you use old slang, the reaction of your Japanese date will likely be, “He thinks he’s being cool speaking like that, 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, and 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. Other 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.

Okoranai-de. ♂

怒おこらないで。

Okoruna-yo. ♀

怒おこるなよ。

Make me warm.

Atatamete.

暖あたためて。

You look beautiful.

Kirei-dayo. (b→g)

きれいだよ。

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. In this book, 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 a standard Japanese (hyōjungo 標ひょう準じゅん語ご) 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 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 (ローマ字じ—Western script, with lines above some vowels meaning long sounds) and in Japanese script with furigana (phonetic hiragana 平ひら仮が名な above the Chinese kanji 漢かん字じ) for an added challenge as you get better. But many phrases are written in another phonetic alphabet, katakana 片かた仮か名な. Katakana are mostly used for foreign words, and there are many of them in this book—for example, “batteries” are batterī バッ テリー. Among other things, they’re also used to write a few Japanese superlatives, such as chō 超ちょう (ちょー) (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 gēmu ゲーム, “bed” becomes beddo ベッド, etc. With no final “r” sound, they usually use a long “a”; for example “locker” becomes rokkā ロッカー. And since there is no “l” at all, “r” is used instead.

There are a few introduced sounds that the Japanese can usually pronounce, and so they’ve created new ways of writing them. A “we” (as in “web”) is written ウェ, and v sounds are written as ヴ followed by a katakana vowel, as in va ヴァ, vi ヴィ etc.—though the ability to pronounce the v varies greatly, especially between generations!

The Japanese enjoy using English words sporadically 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, the charts on pages 14 and 15 show the basic kana in each alphabet.

There are a few more variations in readings to watch out for. Notables are the use of ha as the subject particle, in which case it’s read wa (such as 私わたしは = watashi-wa = I am), and verbs ending in -masu ます, which we’ve romanized to -mas, because that’s how you say it. You’ll pick them all up as you go along.

BEING CHOOSY

There are plenty of phrases for which the Japanese have alternatives, as in any language. As well as the boy/girl classification, we’ve listed them in a rough order from least to most casual, also getting rougher 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 often leave them 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 私わたし (with its super-formal counterpart watakushi 私わたし) and anata あなた that textbooks love.

For girls, there’s atashi あたし, and for guys there’s boku 僕ぼく and ore 俺おれ. To say “you,” girls can say anata あなた or anta あんた, and guys can say kimi 君きみ or omae お前まえ. 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, uncompromising words that can put people off. Until you know when best to use these words (again 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 than 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 rundown of some slang endings and tonal tricks.

For starters, the rules say that plain negative verbs end in -nai (e.g. wakaranai 分わからない I don’t understand/ know). But you’ll hear other forms, like -n, as in wakaran 分わからん, or shiran 知しらん (I dunno) or special corruptions like wakan’nai 分わかんない and iu 言う pronounced yū ゆう. (Plain positive forms generally don’t change as they’re pretty simple already.)

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

Nē gives an (familiar yet) emphatic ending, usually a rhetorical question, and lengthening it adds more emphasis. With 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 gap is narrowing, and, especially around women, guys will often use ne.

Other handy sentence endings (added to any form but the mas form) include yo よ, used to emphasize that “I’m telling you what I think (and you should do this).” Wa わ 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 ～のだ (less formally -nda ～んだ) 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 もう見みたんだよね。

Zo ぞ and ze ぜ can be added (usually by guys) to give instructions. Zo means “let’s do...” as in Yoshi, iku-zo よし、行いくぞ (Right, let’s go), similar to but slightly harsher than ikō 行いこう. Ze is a very strong command form, e.g. Iku-ze! 行いくぜ！ (Move it!) Finally, -kke is a handy ending, expressing either uncertainty or forgetfulness Nan-datta-kke? 何なんだったっけ？ (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.

◆ Hisashiburi-ne. ♀

久ひさしぶりね。

◆ Hisashiburi-dane.

久ひさしぶりだね。

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 des-ne そうだ ね/そうですね (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.

And there’s one last thing: the Japanese love to see foreigners making an effort to speak Japanese! Through their troubles learning English, they know how hard it is, so even if you can’t get the point across to start with, keep trying and you’ll earn more respect. And if you’re using real phrases like the ones in this book, all the better!