Joined: 02 Aug 2003 Posts: 1021 Location: Indonesia Country:
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2003 2:01 am Post subject:
Abbreviation
By : Ed Jacob
This month�fs theme is ryakugo. No, not unfunny Japanese comedians on sitting on pillows telling 200-year old jokes – that�fs Rakugo. Ryakugo means abbreviation. The Japanese language, and young people�fs language in particular, has some great ones but they can be tough to understand when they crop up in daily conversation. In fact, most of them are designed for the express purpose of saying nasty things about people without them knowing what you�fre talking about. If you hear a Shibuya street girl referring to someone as ABCD, for example, she means the person is Aho (idiotic), Baka (stupid), Kasu (the dregs of society), Doji (a blunderer or bungler). Other cruel acronyms include SBC, Supa- Busaiku Cappuru (super ugly couple), and MDD, Megane, Debu, Deppa (a person with glasses who is fat and has buck teeth). Finally, PTA, a truly evil abbreviation if there ever was one, means �gPaddo o tsukau A kappu�h, a girl who has to pad her A-Cup brassiere. Schoolgirls often use MMG and FMG, Mother kara Money Getto and Father kara Money Getto to talk about their source of income. Another popular one, MK5, is maji kire go byou mae. It means that you�fre going to get really angry in about five seconds.
In Shibuya-speak, your ex-boyfriend is a moto kare (moto kareshi) and an ex-girfriend is a moto kano (moto kanojyo). When young people want to confirm what they�fve heard, they say �gM de?�h, which is actually an abbreviation of an abbreviation. �gM de�h is short for �gMaji de�h, which in turn is short of �gMajimena hanashi desu ka?�h (Are you serious?!).
Businesses also get the abbreviation treatment but they aren�ft nasty the way they can be in the States. There�fs no �gShitty Bank�h, �gLittle Seizures�h or �gTaco Hell�h over here. Starbucks is �gSutaba�h or sometimes simply, �gBakkusu�h, and McDonald�fs is �gMakku�h in Kanto and �gMakudo�h in Kansai. Royal Host usually gets called �gRoiho�h, KFC is Kenta, Mister Donuts is Misudo and Family Mart is �gFamima�h. The famous �gSam and Dave�fs�h in Osaka is more often called �gSamude�h. AM PM is far too long so it gets shortened to �gi-p-�h. Video arcades are ge-sen and karaoke parlors are often referred to as �eoke�f by young people.
If you�fre having trouble making yourself understood when you talk about foreign celebrities, it may be because a lot of people are used to hearing them referred to by their Japanese nicknames. Brad Pitt, for example is probably more recognizable as Burapi, Johnny Depp as Jonide, Britney Spears is Buri-chan and poor Arnold Schwarzenegger has also gotten stuck with �echan�f, the diminutive usually used for elementary school-aged children. He�fs commonly known as Shuwa-chan. Leonardo DiCaprio, on the other hand, has somehow managed to get the honorable prefix �esama�f attached to his name and is known as �gReo-sama�h. If you want to refer to gaijin TV monkeys in general, just say, gaitare (gaijin tarento).
Joined: 13 Aug 2003 Posts: 312 Location: uk Country:
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2003 9:07 am Post subject:
another one is E.T.
Yes it is a reference to the movie and means Supa eirian. eirian comes from Alien (E.T.=extra teresstrial=alien ). IIm sure it comes a little shock that it means super ugly (women only as far as i know)
I could give other examples from my slang book, but Im sure we shouldnt be learning that stuff first should we?
Wow..dats a lotsa stuff u noe there..Bsalez
Anyway..i wanna noe how u guys noe so much bout these jap culture i'm sure y'all can't get this from formal classes rite?
So..mind sharing what's you people source of knowledge....hmmm
Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 2106 Location: singapore Country:
Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2003 7:27 am Post subject:
Dark^3nforc3r wrote:
Wow..dats a lotsa stuff u noe there..Bsalez
Anyway..i wanna noe how u guys noe so much bout these jap culture i'm sure y'all can't get this from formal classes rite?
So..mind sharing what's you people source of knowledge....hmmm
watching more japanese dramas and tv shows.. you'll get to learn lots of everyday stuff from there..
hmm.. i do dat too...i watched jap dorama as long as i can remember.
But, i dun think i learned much anyway..seems dat if i go to japan rite now i might end up making a fool out of myself a lot of times..since there's so much stuff i dunno.....gotta do a lotsa catching up i guess..
Anyway, i'll like to noe bout the kanto and kansai dialect...i mean how do u differentiate them...which artist uses which dialect and what part of japan uses it?
watching more japanese dramas and tv shows.. you'll get to learn lots of everyday stuff from there..
Acutally... it's true that I get to learn lots of everyday stuff from japanese dramas, but I can't seem to construct a proper sentence. I can only say short phrases now, and words of expression e.g. Subarashii, sugoi... blah...
I did try learning online, (that was in March or so) and I managed to learn the basic sentence structure of the Japanese Language. Now it's just October. Guess what? I forgot everything
Time to enrol myself into a proper language school.
So how'd you guys learn the basic sentence structure and make it stay in your brains?
Hey arashinokoto, which language school did you attend?
I really feel like kicking myself now -- 2 years ago I was given the chance to enrol into the MOELC (Ministry of Ed. Lang Ctr) to study a 3rd Language of my choice (out of 4 offered - Japanese, French, Malay and German). At that time I wasn't that interested in Japanese Culture, so I picked French.
French is a beautiful language, yes, but it's difficult to speak it fluently and listen to the locals speak it. The accent's too heavy for me to catch, and some of them speak real fast. It was so difficult for me to concentrate that I often fell asleep in class
I quit after a year because I thought I should stop wasting time if I wasn't interested. And now? I want to learn Japanese. Hmmph.
Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 2106 Location: singapore Country:
Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2003 7:50 pm Post subject:
i used to attend MOELC.. also i wasn't that interested then so i left after about 8 months.. then i took lessons at a private center which cost a bomb and got my JLPT 4 cert.. but becoz of my studies.. i am now putting off my japanese studies until i graduate from secondary school..
Joined: 13 Aug 2003 Posts: 312 Location: uk Country:
Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2003 8:14 pm Post subject:
velvet_ice wrote:
arashinokoto wrote:
watching more japanese dramas and tv shows.. you'll get to learn lots of everyday stuff from there..
Acutally... it's true that I get to learn lots of everyday stuff from japanese dramas, but I can't seem to construct a proper sentence. I can only say short phrases now, and words of expression e.g. Subarashii, sugoi... blah...
Thats not any different from most casual learners. Use that to build on and learn how to add words in to make the sentances longer. Learn new phrases and how to connect them to others
Quote:
I did try learning online, (that was in March or so) and I managed to learn the basic sentence structure of the Japanese Language. Now it's just October. Guess what? I forgot everything
Time to enrol myself into a proper language school.
So how'd you guys learn the basic sentence structure and make it stay in your brains?
v_ice
Keep going over it until you remember.
Try to remember what you have learned during the day - the more you study the easier it should be to remember
Thats not any different from most casual learners. Use that to build on and learn how to add words in to make the sentances longer. Learn new phrases and how to connect them to others
Keep going over it until you remember.
Try to remember what you have learned during the day - the more you study the easier it should be to remember
Hey sephy, thanks alot for the advice. I'll try my best... if my time permits.
arashinokoto, you're in secondary school eh? haha. I'm in Secondary 3. . You?
wow..arashinokoto..how i envy you...
You are still in sec school but oledi this good in nihongo...
sigh...i still have a long way to go...
I think it is nice for ur govt to let students study an alternative language there.....
wow..arashinokoto..how i envy you...
You are still in sec school but oledi this good in nihongo...
sigh...i still have a long way to go...
I think it is nice for ur govt to let students study an alternative language there.....
It's tough, though. If we take the ones that the Ministry of Education provides us with, that is. Most of us take like 8-9 subjects already, plus a third langage would mean 9/10 subjects. Difficult to juggle. So, it's not entirely a good thing. As I said, I wound up quitting the French course I took. Only for those who are really great at organizing their time. Not me...
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