Revised Edition
Todd Geers and Erika Hoburg
revised by Elisha Geers
TUTTLE Publishing
Tokyo | Rutland, Vermont | Singapore
Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.
Copyright © 1988 Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Co. Inc.
Copyright © 2003, 2014 Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.
Illustrations (full-paged) by Akiko Saito
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Preface to the Third Edition
Thanks to you readers, Making Out In Japanese has long been a perennial favorite among people who want to boost their ability to jump in and converse. To help you keep it going, this new edition has eliminated some outmoded phrases and added some new ones. And because Japan, like the US, moves on a faster track than ever, we’ve added a chapter to help ensure your social savvy is up-to-date.
In a culture where social networking sites are growing increasingly popular, and having a cell phone (or two) is expected, being able to communicate about communicating has taken on an importance of his own. The realm of electronic communication has a constantly evolving and shifting language of its own, as well. The Making the Scene chapter includes a few terms and phrases to help you expand your virtual social network, decode the language of the Internet, and generally stay connected to your new friends, whether your preferred mode is a desktop computer or your smartphone.
We’ve also included new information on that other way to connect: face time. The not-so-new phenomenon of gokon, or a group date, is covered in the new chapter. (Not your usual date, it’s competition, Japanese-style. Modesty is key, but don’t be afraid to flaunt your gaijin-card.) This section shows you how to introduce yourself, how to make yourself sound more interesting and attractive than the next girl/ guy, and the protocol that can be expected after most gokons have been fleshed out. We’ll also introduce you to some of the archetypes you’ll see mostly in cities, but whose influence can be seen in less populated areas of Japan as well.
Some chapters now include a short vocabulary to help you get up to speed on some new and not-so-new terminology.
Have fun, and 頑がん張ばって!* Ganbatte!
* Hang in there!
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