ok kids, time to learn some japanese that can be used in English

after being in the IJST program and leaving I realize that I have picked up vocabulary that isnt english or japanese. here's a few examples.


-tachi

"I was hanging out with the san kai tachi a few minutes ago and we played a way cool game"

this is basically used in regards to a group. for example, in the IJST program there were groups of people that alway hung out together (no these are not cliques--you don't get mocked or anything like that--its just the people you get along with the best). all the people (including myself) that hung out on the third floor lounge of the apartment building the program took over called ourselves the san kai tachi (the third floor group)

chotto matte-ing


"ohman, we need to chotto matte here to buy some stuff"

This means we need to stop--matte is the te-form of the verb matsu which is to wait. I used the phrase a lot today. chotto can also be used to describe something negative. The Japanese use the word alone when they want to not give a direct negative answer. so we use it for the following;

"that is chotto expensive" "That was chotto scary" "this seems like a chotto bad idea"

the literal mean can be seen as "kind of"


"ganbate"

"lets ganbatte this!"

ganbatte is normally used to cheer someone one on. however when used in IJST english its basically to say lets get this started.


*In dopey voice* omedetou
this is used alone and normally after someone does something incredibly dumb. think of the word "kudos" used sarcastically.

"jouzu!"

this word in japanese is normally used in japanese to say you are good at something.

thats it for now. i'll think of some more that we used.

--signing off for now--

dre