Category: Vocabulary
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ASCII Art Omitted – AA略
You might see this term used online among Japanese netizens. The term AA is an abbreviation of ASCII Art – American Standard Code for Information Interchange – referring to those weird and wonderful faces made up of electronic characters.
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Lady Men – ギャル男
A interesting sub-culture found in Japan, particularly around the fashionable, young districts of Shibuya and Shinjuku, is that of Gyaru-oh, the so called ‘lady men’.
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Twitter Lingo – なう
Those of you who are Twitter users will have undoubtedly comes across the slang term なう, which evolved on the social network in response to the ‘What are you doing now?’ tagline. Let’s take a brief look at the term!
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Insufferable Summer Heat – 夏バテ
Seeing as summer is drawing to a close and Autumn is fast approaching, I figured it would be a good time to cover this seasonal word. Don’t be too sure that the incredibly hot weather has ended yet! September can still pack quite a punch.
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Snaggletooth – 八重歯
Here’s a little word that you may have not heard before, but you’ve more than likely *seen* it. I mean, you do spend all day looking at Japanese idols, right?
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Summer Solstice – 夏至
Interesting little word today that you’re only likely to hear once a year. 夏至 (げし) is the summer solstice – the longest day in the entire calendar year.
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Curious Katakana Words 3
In the previous lessons (1, 2) we looked at foreign words, as well as onomatopoeic and mimetic expressions. This time, we’ll be examining some really interesting terms that splice two or more words together!
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Curious Katakana Words 2
Last time we looked at foreign expressions that make up a portion of Curious Katakana Words. Today we explore some useful onomatopoeic words you can use to really express yourself!
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Curious Katakana Words 1
The Japanese language has a smattering of quirky expressions. At first glance, their meanings can often elude us. This is especially so with Katakana words, as they often contain elements from foreign languages, as well as mixtures of slang and even current, trending terms.
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Hanpa Nai – 半端ない
Here’s a curious expression I came across a while ago on Twitter. 半端ない. You might recognise it from 中途半端, but this slang version has quite a different meaning!