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Thursday, August 27, 2009

一騎当千

いっきとうせん
ikki tousen

Continuing with the "One/Multitude" theme we started with 八面六臂, let's take a look at another yoji that describes one person taking on a considerable amount of work, albeit in a slightly different vein.

Definition:
一人で千人の敵に対抗することができること。人並みはずれた技術や経験のあること。
Translations:
1. Strong enough or skilled enough to take on an army.
2. Being extremely formidable in your field.

There are actually a number of other 四字熟語 that have the same meaning, so if you think you might be able to use this one, consider varying it up with yojis like 一人当千(いちにんとうせん)、蓋世不抜(かいせいふばつ), or 万夫不当(ばんぷふとう). But don't expect the average person to recognize all of them, necessarily. From what I can tell, 蓋世不抜 is pretty rare, and 一人当千 seems most common, but not most correct. A google search for it will bring up about 6 million results, but it will also bring up the "もしかして:" prompt which will ask you if maybe you meant... you guessed it, 一騎当千.

Also, I like to think of these alongside the family of 天下無〇 yojis that Brett posted on forever ago.

See what you can do with it.

(NOTE: One thing that you SHOULDN'T DO with it is a Google Image Search, on account of it seems to be the name of a manga that is either naturally pornographic, or lends itself to pornography of the 同人誌 variety.

例文:
熊さん: 一騎当千のアンドさんには適う訳ないやん!
アンドさん: それは確かにそうだよ。。。。 ペンペン。

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

八面六臂

はちめんろっぴ
hachimen roppi

I'm gonna skip the whole "OMG、 you've been gone forever stuff" and just... post a yo-ji. Enjoy.

We've discussed the various significances of the number 8 here before. But when it shows up in 四字熟語 like 四通八達 and 八方美人, you can usually assume it's being invoked to mean a multitude, or quantity that covers all possibilities. All directions.

So 八面 is eight faces, or all sides. But what about the other half of today's yo-ji? Six elbows, written with a rare kanji (elbow is most often written in kana, ひじ, and even when it's not, it's mostly written using this kanji: 肘) is a reference to six-armed Buddha statues, which, more often than not, wield a variety of instruments.

So what can you do with eight faces and six arms? Frickin' ANYTHING.

Definition:
一人で数人分の働きをすること。色々な分野で活躍すること。
Translation:
1. Good at everything.
2. Skilled in all fields.
3. Handling the workload of many by one's self.
4. Versatile.

I wouldn't reccommend saying it about yourself, unless you want to be accused of some 自画自賛, but if someone says it about you, try to work that lethal combo of Nihongo-skills and Japanese-modesty, like today's example sentence.

例文:
Aさん:お姉さん、日本語も上手だし、料理もうまいらしい、スポーツもカラオケもできるという話を聞きましたが、本当に八面六臂の活躍ぶりはすごいですよね。
Bさん:それほどでもないです。八面六臂というより、まさに器用貧乏って感じです。