{"id":9718,"date":"2020-12-14T23:24:13","date_gmt":"2020-12-14T23:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/?p=9718"},"modified":"2023-04-13T22:51:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T22:51:11","slug":"awesome-japanese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/awesome-japanese\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Awesome Ways to Say &#8220;awesome&#8221; in Japanese"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>img#mv-trellis-img-1::before{padding-top:150%; }img#mv-trellis-img-1{display:block;}<\/style><p>There&rsquo;s not a lot that people agree about with regards to Japan. How to eat sushi, Tokyo vs Osaka, which anime is the GOAT? No consensus. But there is <i>one<\/i> thing virtually everyone can agree on.<\/p>\n<p>Japan is <i>awesome<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to talk about the awesomeness that is Japan&mdash;in Japanese&mdash;then how do you go about it? We&rsquo;re gonna tackle 8 ways you can do that in this article.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>How do you say &ldquo;awesome&rdquo; in Japanese?<\/h2>\n<p><b>If you want to say &ldquo;awesome&rdquo; in the sense that something was impressive, you can say &ldquo;sugoi.&rdquo;<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>1. Sugoi (incredible; immense)<\/h2>\n<p>A word well known to anyone with even a passing familiarity with Japanese, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/sugoi-dekai\/\"><i>sugoi<\/i><\/a><\/strong> is a great word to use when you want to say that something is awesome in the sense of being impressive or incredible. This can be awesome skill, strength, height, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Sugoi is commonly written in kana as &#12377;&#12372;&#12356;. It can also be written with kanji as &#20932;&#12356;. Also, it sometimes gets pronounced as &ldquo;sugee&rdquo; (soo-gay), usually as a way to amp up the feeling behind the word.<\/p>\n<p>There&rsquo;s not much to know with regards to usage. See something sugoi? Just say &ldquo;Sugoi!&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>2. Kakkoi (cool; attractive)<\/h2>\n<p><i>Kakkoi<\/i> is how you say awesome, but with the sense that something is &ldquo;cool.&rdquo; Furthermore, it&rsquo;s usually directed towards males. So, if Tom has some sick kicks on, you can him with a &ldquo;Kakkoi-yo!&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>This one&rsquo;s also usually written in kana, this time as &#12363;&#12387;&#12371;&#12356;&#12356;. You might also see it written with kanji as &#26684;&#22909;&#12356;&#12356;. To avoid confusion, let&rsquo;s look at a comparison with sugoi.<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">&#24444;&#12398;&#36554;&#12399;&#22823;&#22793;&#12377;&#12372;&#12356;&#12380;&#12290;\n<p>Kare-no-kuruma wa taihen sugoi ze.<\/p>\n<p>His car is awesome (great performance).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">\n<p>&#24444;&#12398;&#36554;&#12399;&#22823;&#22793;&#12459;&#12483;&#12467;&#12452;&#12452;&#12290;<\/p>\n<p>Kare-no-kuruma wa taihen kakkoi.<\/p>\n<p>His car is awesome (cool).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<h2>3. Saiko (the best; supreme)<\/h2>\n<p>No, no, not &ldquo;psycho.&rdquo; This is <i>saiko<\/i>, which means the &ldquo;best, highest, most, supreme.&rdquo; And it can be translated as &ldquo;awesome&rdquo; with these words in mind. In this way, it&rsquo;d probably be closer to &ldquo;the awesomest!&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>We usually write this in kanji as &#26368;&#39640;, though it can be written in kana as well as &#12373;&#12356;&#12371;&#12358;.<\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>4. Yatta (Woo!)<\/h2>\n<p><i>Yatta<\/i> is what you say when something good happens. It&rsquo;s like &ldquo;Woo!&rdquo; or &ldquo;Hooray!.&rdquo; With that same feeling, you sometimes say &ldquo;Awesome!&rdquo; to exclaim how happy you are about an outcome. That&rsquo;s where yatta comes in. Finished climbing a mountain? &ldquo;Yattaaaaaa.&rdquo; Got a good grade on the exam? &ldquo;YatTA!&rdquo; Team wins the cup. &ldquo;YATTA!!&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>This one only gets a kana transcription, no kanji, as far as I know. Here you go: &#12420;&#12387;&#12383;.<\/p>\n<p><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9742\" src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN.jpg\" alt=\"Awesome in Japanese PIN\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN.jpg 320w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-735x1103.jpg 735w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-223x335.jpg 223w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-231x347.jpg 231w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-347x520.jpg 347w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-427x640.jpg 427w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-512x768.jpg 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN.jpg\"><\/noscript><img loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9742 eager-load\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201000%201500'%3E%3Crect%20width='1000'%20height='1500'%20style='fill:%23e3e3e3'\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" alt=\"Awesome in Japanese PIN\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1500\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN.jpg\" id=\"mv-trellis-img-1\" data-src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN.jpg\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN.jpg 320w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-735x1103.jpg 735w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-223x335.jpg 223w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-231x347.jpg 231w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-347x520.jpg 347w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-427x640.jpg 427w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Awesome-in-Japanese-PIN-512x768.jpg 512w\" data-svg=\"1\" data-trellis-processed=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>5. Subarashii (wonderful; fantastic)<\/h2>\n<p>Subarashii is a softer &ldquo;awesome.&rdquo; It lies in the same mental space as &ldquo;wonderful&rdquo; and &ldquo;splendid.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">\n<p><strong>&#12381;&#12398;&#12497;&#12540;&#12486;&#12451;&#12399;&#32032;&#26228;&#12425;&#12375;&#12363;&#12387;&#12383;&#12290; <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sono patei wa subrashikatta.<\/p>\n<p>That part was awesome (a good time, pleasant).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>You&rsquo;ll notice that this one can be written with kanji as &#32032;&#26228;&#12425;&#12375;&#12356;, although it&rsquo;s frequently written in kana as &#12377;&#12400;&#12425;&#12375;&#12356;, so it&rsquo;s good to recognize both.<\/p>\n<p>Another quick example to get the feel of this one:<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">\n<p>&#23500;&#22763;&#23665;&#12364;&#12377;&#12400;&#12425;&#12375;&#12356;&#30522;&#12417;&#12384;&#12387;&#12383;&#12290;<\/p>\n<p>Fuji-san ga subarashi nagame datta.<\/p>\n<p>I had an awesome (magnificent) view of Mt. Fuji.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>6. Umai (delicious)<\/h2>\n<p>Ah, but what if you want to say that the food is &ldquo;awesome,&rdquo; aka &ldquo;delicious&rdquo;? Then you need our friend <i>umai.<\/i> Like the word &ldquo;awesome,&rdquo; umai is a little bit relaxed. That is to say, it&rsquo;s not strictly formal speech, but neither is it rude. The slightly more polite version of &ldquo;delicious&rdquo; is &ldquo;oishii.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>But when you want people to know that something is <i>really<\/i> delicious, then you have to break out the &ldquo;Umai!&rdquo; And if you&rsquo;re really into it, you can contract the vowels into either a sharp &ldquo;UmA!&rdquo; or (similar to sugee) &ldquo;Umee&rdquo; (oo-meh). That&rsquo;s when you know it&rsquo;s <i>seriously<\/i> delicious.<\/p>\n<p>This one is written in kana as &#12358;&#12414;&#12356; and in kanji as &#19978;&#25163;&#12356;. Actually, depending on context, you might see it written a few other ways, such as &#32654;&#21619;&#12356; or &#26088;&#12356;. When the word gets contracted it&rsquo;s written as &#12358;&#12414;&#12387; (umA!) or &#12358;&#12417;&#12359; (umee).<\/p>\n<p>This one is often heard as a mere exclamation. If you wanted to say &ldquo;This chicken skewer is awesome,&rdquo; you would just say, &ldquo;Umai!&rdquo; If you really wanted to be specific, you could say &ldquo;Kono yakitori umai!&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Heck, if you really want to pull out the stops, you could say, &ldquo;Umai! Sugee umai!&rdquo;<\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>7. Osorubeki (dreadful; fearsome)<\/h2>\n<p>Ah, yes, that <i>other<\/i> meaning of awesome. I had to put this in here, even though it&rsquo;s a pretty uncommon usage in modern English.<\/p>\n<p>In this sense, we think of things vast and frightening. Literally something which inspires awe&mdash;awesome. To this end we have <i>osorubeki<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>This one gets written as &#24656;&#12427;&#12409;&#12365; in kanji. This one is literally a combination of &ldquo;to fear&rdquo; and &ldquo;should.&rdquo; It means, quite literally, &ldquo;that which you should fear.&rdquo; Neat. Let&rsquo;s see it in a sentence.<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">\n<p>&#12456;&#12452;&#12474;&#12454;&#12452;&#12523;&#12473;&#12398;&#25313;&#25955;&#12399;&#24656;&#12427;&#12409;&#12365;&#36895;&#12373;&#12391;&#36914;&#12435;&#12391;&#12356;&#12427;&#12290;<\/p>\n<p>Eizu-uirusu no kakusan wa osorubeki hayasa de susunndeiru.<\/p>\n<p>AIDS is spreading with awesome speed.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>8. Manji (thumbs up)<\/h2>\n<p>This next one is a part of internet slang and is a bit strange, especially to foreigners. Basically, you can express a sense of an approval-based &ldquo;awesome&rdquo; by writing the kanji &#21325;.<\/p>\n<p>Now, that&rsquo;s not connected in meaning to that terrible German appropriation from the mid-20th century. No, that&rsquo;s the &ldquo;manji,&rdquo; a Buddhist symbol that is, frankly, everywhere in Japan and has no connection to Europe and its history.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, so it&rsquo;s not something problematic, and it <i>is<\/i> Buddhist&hellip;. Then how does that fit into the internet??<\/p>\n<p>Great question! And I&rsquo;m honestly not sure about the etymology of the expression (and neither is anyone else, apparently). It&rsquo;s related to the Japanese way of saying &ldquo;Really??&rdquo; which is <i>maji<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>The original expression was <i>maji-manji<\/i> before it got shortened to just manji. My personal guess is that it was a punny and slangy way of saying something like, &ldquo;For real for realz.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>And then, simply through the natural way expressions get shortened, the &ldquo;maji&rdquo; part was dropped.<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s been really popular, especially among schoolgirls in Japan (voted most popular slang of 2016!). Heck, there&rsquo;s a whole pose that goes with it.<\/p>\n<p>So, how does this work, anyway? One tweet looked like this:<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">\n<p><strong>&#12363;&#12431;&#12356;&#12356;&#12362;&#24321;&#24403;&#12354;&#12426;&#12364;&#12392;&#12358;&#65281; <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>#&#24859;&#22827;&#24321;&#24403; #&#21325; <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thank you for the adorable bento!<\/p>\n<p>#Lover boy bento<\/p>\n<p>#Yasss<\/p>\n<p>&#21325;&#12473;&#12479;&#12496;&#12394;&#12358;&#21325;<\/p>\n<p>?Goin&rsquo; for Starbucks?<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&rsquo;s not a lot that people agree about with regards to Japan. How to eat sushi, Tokyo vs Osaka, which anime is the GOAT? No consensus. But there is one thing virtually everyone can agree on. Japan is awesome. If you want to talk about the awesomeness that is Japan&mdash;in Japanese&mdash;then how do you go &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9744,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable-in-feed":false,"article-schema-type":"","disable-critical-css":false,"_convertkit_action_broadcast_export":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,1155],"tags":[246],"class_list":["post-9718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-japanese","category-japanese-vocabulary","tag-awesome-in-japanese"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9718"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25119,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718\/revisions\/25119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}