「日刊四字」へようこそ!

Now Featuring 1級 Grammar, Everyday Japanese That You Won't Find in the Book, and Language and Cultural Trivia!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

悠々自適

ゆうゆうじてき
yuuyuu jiteki

Ahhh, yet another yo-ji that speaks to the me that I wish I was... (bonus points if you can remember some of the others). And it gets us one more や行 yo-ji, which is our goal for a little while.

Definition:
世間のわずらわしさから離れ、ゆったりと自由気ままに過ごすこと。
Translations:
1. Getting away from it all (as a way of life.)
2. Living life free from worldly troubles.

I like to think of this one as having to do with a hermetic lifestyle, going off to live in the mountains, a la Spider Jerusalem, and while it wouldn't necessarily HAVE to go hand in hand with 自給自足, they would look pretty nice together, don't you think?

Try attaching の afterwards to say things like 悠々自適の生活 or 悠々自適の人生. You can get away verbing it with に過ごす or する、 but both of those usages seem less common (とくに「する」).

例文:
悠々自適の人生を手に入れるために田舎に引っ越して来ました。しかし、実際に都会での歯車の存在より、畑で野菜作りの方が面倒くさい。
I moved out to the country side to start living a quiet, peaceful life away from the annoyances of the world. But trying to raise your own vegetables in the garden is actually more of a pain in the ass than being a city drone ever was.

2 comments:

Benjamin L. Belcher said...

That's an excellent Yo-ji. I'll try to use it with my Japanese friends as well. Keep up the great work!

Claytonian said...

賛成
me: I'm gonna own a bookstore in the mountains.
gf: But no one will come to shop in the mountains!
me: Exactly.