Comments on: It’s, like, like 【なんか】

By: COLEEN

COLEEN — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:37:32 +0000

HI.. :)

WHAT IS THE JAPANESE WORD OF “I DON’T CARE?.

I HOPE YOU’LL REPLY HERE.SOONER. :)
I’LL W8. :)

By: Tae Kim

Tae Kim — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 12:59:23 +0000

From what I tell from google, しゃばい is apparently slang for しょぼい.

しょぼい means roughly “no big deal” as in it’s kinda lacking and crappy.

By: Ｃｈｉｋｉｃｈａｎ

Ｃｈｉｋｉｃｈａｎ — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 03:41:44 +0000

I just watched a Japanese play “Ranuki Satsui” ら抜き殺意 about the way young people tend to speak Japanese improperly and about many other aspects like woman speach versus men speach, etc. One word that intrigued me is “shabai”, this is kogyaru　コギャル　slang. Could you please give me an approximate explanation reagrding its meaning? Thank you so much.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 06:07:58 +0000

なるほど。No complaints then. It’s just that all your other example English sentences are completely natural sounding, so just this one seemed a bit jarring to me. Guess I’ve said my 3yens worth :-)

By: Tae Kim

Tae Kim — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 23:59:28 +0000

But I don’t care whether it’s a good translation or not, only whether it conveys the Japanese meaning as much as possible despite the differences in the two languages. So I don’t think not translating it at all is better for my purposes.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 11:10:21 +0000

Umm, I think “ゲームなんか興味ないよ。= Not interested in something game.” is not a good example translation.. なんか when used like this emphasises that you have a negative opion of, or don’t think much of, whatever comes before it. When you translate it into English you don’t have to translate なんか directly, it’s more about the phrasing of the whole sentence to give it the right extra-negative tone. A better translation is just a simple “I’m not interested in games” or “I’m really not interested in games”

By: Morris

Morris — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 04:09:14 +0000

That was a wonderful post, and like Yves I actually laughed when I got to the さ part. Thank you!

Perhaps a future post could tackle 「～って感じ」. As in 「頑張ろうって感じ」。

By: jLo

jLo — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 06:01:40 +0000

This lesson in “nanka” is quite valuable, but at the interest of balancing the scales, I think it bears mentioning that the overuse of “sa” in these examples is extremely Tokyo, and not representative of Japanese as a whole. Dialects can vary wildly from region to region, and “sa” abuse is a Tokyo hallmark, much as “na” and “nen” abuse is a hallmark of western Japan.

Again, Web master, not trying to stir up trouble — just trying to show that “Japanese” is a mostly contextual beast that differs according to where in the country you live. (Case in point, my first week in Japan I walked into a Tower Records and saw a sign proclaiming that the music in this particular corner was で～れ～ええ音楽. I encountered で～れ～ plenty more times in my stay in that region, and could include the term in my notes on Japanese … but that doesn’t mean the term would be of use — or even comprehended — in areas outside where it is commonly used.)

By: oyu2o

oyu2o — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 16:10:12 +0000

maybe an explanation for “nante”?

By: andrew

andrew — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 04:07:10 +0000

and on that note, my japanse friend had this book on the hundred-something most often used expressions in english, and wouldn’t you know what number one was… like!