教科書に載ってない日本語

Even More Japanese That Ain't in The Book


~Feelings, nothing more than feelings~ Part 1 of X

Yet another installment of words and phrases "to help make your 言い回し more 日本人ぽい."
Today, we're going to look at some of the nuances in useage of a whole lot of words used to talk about conditions, mood, feeling, or atmosphere. This is a rich topic, so it will probably turn into more of a series of posts. There is an entire post to be written about each and every one of these words, but hopefully you'll be able to glean enough information here to give yourselves a solid foundation to start doing some learning by experiencing Japanese language firsthand.　(Thanks to Jeff for getting this list started!) Today we are going to focus on the essential building block of feelings/emotions, also known as:

気
き
ki

essence, nature, energy

気 is probably one of the most important words and concepts that you will come across while studying Japanese. It has all kinds of definitions, but in general there seem to be about 5 will help you understand most phrases that you might come across:
1) The basic energy that runs through the universe (kind of like The Force)
2) Life-energy
3) The mind and/or heart, and their various states
4) The atmosphere or essence of a specific place or scene
5) The essence of a given thing; the aspect of a given thing that makes it what it is
If you've ever watched Kung-fu movies, I believe that this is what is commonly referred to as "chi" in the Chinese terminology (though since I'm not a Chinese-speaker, you will have to take that with a grain of salt... or wikipedia). That being said, let's look at some 慣用表現　（かんようひょうげん）, or idiomatic expressions, that make use of this character, if only to gain some kind of familiarity with it.

気を付ける
きをつける
ki wo tsukeru

to be careful; to pay attention

I'm sure that all of you have already heard of/make use of this phrase fairly often. It was certainly the first context in which I learned the word 気, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was true for most Japanese-learners. It is fairly simple; one "attaches" their mind to a specific thing. This is usually used as an admonition to have your mind on whatever you are doing at the time. Notice that a similar construction is used in the intransitive:

気が付く　or　気づく
きがつく　or　きづく
ki ga tsuku OR kidzuku (pronounced kizuku)

to realize; to notice

This is another simple one. It is when your mind or heart attaches to something - that is, realizes it, when something that had escaped your notice before suddenly becomes clear to you. Note that 気づける, which one might try to say as a contraction of 気をづける, actually becomes the potential form of this verb.

気になる
きになる
ki ni naru

to worry about, to wonder about, to be on one's mind

This is another good one, which perhaps some of you don't know. Most people first learn this as meaning "something is worrying me." For example:
デイリー四字は最近変更されてないのが気になる。彼ら元気にしてるかな？
I'm worried about DY's lack of updates recently. I wonder if they're ok?
How sweet of you all to worry about us! There are other uses, too. For example, you might use it to talk about something (someone?) you want to know more about, either in a good way or a bad way. Something might be, for example, 気になるNirav情報満載！ That would mean its full of the Nirav-info that you've all been wondering about! And what a wonderful thing that would be.

気を遣う　OR　気遣い (note the kanji usage! 使う is wrong!)
きをつかう　OR　きづかい
ki wo tsukau OR kidzukai

to consider someone, to worry about someone

Japanese-learners are often faced with the fact that Japanese society tends to be very concerned with appropriate levels of politeness and decorum. Part of this is 気遣い. Put roughly, it means to consider someone's wants or needs, often without being asked. For example, putting out some tea and/sweets when someone comes to visit might be an example of 気遣い. Slowing down or going easy on an amateur is another example. People sometimes use this sarcastically, but that is a topic for another day.

気が利く
きがきく
ki ga kiku

considerate, sharp (as in smart)

People whose 気遣い is on target will often be told that their 気が利く. 利く here means to function or be useful. In other words, if you are a good host, you will know in advance what your guests will need. You can also use it to describe someone who is mentally sharp.

気が合う
きがあう
ki ga au

to get along well

When your 気 and someone else's 気 match up, that means your specific essences match up, and you get along well. When they don't match up, trouble ensues!

気に食わない
きにくわない
ki ni kuwanai

気に障る
きにさわる
ki ni sawaru

to get on one's nerves, to not be able to stand

I put these together because they have essentially the same meaning, although as I understand it 気に障る is more serious. You might notice that 障る is read the same way as 触る. There is a whole post in this, but for now, imagine the feeling of someone 触る-ing your eyeball. That's how I think of the meaning of 障る. And that is the feeling I get when I meet someone who really gets on my nerves. Stop touching my eyeballs!

気が済む
きがすむ
ki ga sumu

to be satisfied, to get something out of one's system

Notice the 済む here (also notice that it is NOT 住む). This character means "to end" or "to be over with." (For example, paying off a loan is called 返済; something that is already spoken for is 約束済み; etc, etc). It can also mean "to subside" or "to clear." Here, your 気 is full of desire to do something - be it cry, scream, play a prank, whatever. Once you've gotten on with it, you can say that your 気が済んだ and you are done with it. Often times you will be asked それで気が済んだのか？ (Is it out of your system now?)

気が散る
きがちる
ki ga chiru

to lose one's concentration

You know when you're trying to study, but there are gunshots outside? Or when you are trying to put together a blog post, but someone keeps g-chatting you? That's the kind of thing that really makes your 気　散る. Think of 散る as things falling haphazardly (perhaps your belongings all over your apartment, or the leaves off of a tree). When this happens to your 気, you lose your ability to focus.

Focus, people, we're almost done.

気をひかれる
きをひかれる
ki wo hikareru

to be distracted

This is slightly different from the above, in that it is more like your mind wanders. Rather than have an external shock (like someone yelling at you), you might be writing your blog post and get distracted by the TV, or by the book on your desk, or by the food in your refrigerator, or by....

Ok, anyway, now that you've got a basic (though by no means exhaustive) idea of what 気 is, next time we go through some of the more complicated 熟語 that contain it, and related words that it would be a good idea to distinguish/differentiate. Until then!

一心不乱

いっしん　ふらん
isshin furan

I've never particularly felt like posting the yoji 一生懸命(いっしょうけんめい；isshoukenmei), because... well, because it's so common that it doesn't even feel like a yoji to me. After all, it's probably the yoji that's used most frequently in conversation, and I know that both Brett and I had each used it hundreds of times before we even knew that it was a yoji.

I even remember the first time I came across it, in my first Japanese text book.　It was written in romaji, and it was defined simply as an adverb meaning : "hard," as in "I study hard." Not a particularly auspicious introduction.

But then I remembered that it wasn't until I came to Japan that I actually started to use it when I spoke (because everyone here says it) and that somewhere along the line someone mentioned to me that the Japanese version of doing something "hard" carried the nuance of expending all of the effort of your heart, your soul, your entire life. And this nuance is buried in the kanji that this yoji is constructed with. 一生懸命 can mean "for dear life," even when applied to innocuous things like studying or playing badminton, because if you do them seriously, you put all of yourself into them.

So with this post, I wanted to take care of the fact that I've neglected the most common yoji ever for far too long, but I was still worried that too many of my readers might see an 一生懸命 post and go, "Meh. I already knew that...." So I did some digging and I did some talking and I found an alternate yoji that will cause more of an impact when you say it. Here you go.

Definition:
心をひとつに集中し、他の事のために心を乱されない。わき目もふらない。
Translations:
1. Intense concentrated effort in one specific direction
2. Single-minded devotion to something (more likely to be a goal than a person)
3. Unwavering concentration

"One heart, no rebellion" according to the kanji. You might recognize the 乱 from words like 乱暴、or ... other words that use 乱. The idea is that when you're in this state of mind, nothing breaks your concentration. The example I got (mundane as it may seem) was that if you're working at your desk, and you're really into it, and a mosquito starts draining your blood and you don't even notice, 「一心不乱に働いている」と言われる.

At Nishi Kawasoe Elementary, we Takeshita-sensei and Kyoto-sensei and I had a long talk about these two yojis (whose meanings are 大同小異) and how they were different. Here's what you should know.

一心不乱 is not used with imperative forms. You can't say 「一心不乱頑張ってください。」

Opinions (two of them) are divided as to which of the two expressions is stronger. Takeshita-sensei contends that 一生懸命 implies that 「命を懸ける」; in the original meaning, your life is at stake, so 一生懸命 has the more powerful meaning. But he was forced to concede to the point Kyoto-sensei made: In modern Japanese, 一心不乱 is rarer, and 一生懸命 is so common that people (like me) don't tend to really HEAR it, any more than they really HEAR an お疲れ様 at the end of the day. If one was to say 一心不乱 in it's place, they'd be more like to grab the listener's attention.

So the consensus (of two) was that while 一生懸命 is stronger in meaning,　一心不乱 is stronger in terms of impact when used.

Note:

• 不乱 is pronounced like "fran."
• The following video is an example of someone who DOESN'T know the meaning of either of today's yoji, and needs to be reminded: 「自転車を乗り、調子乗ってんじゃね！
  
  
  

例文：子供の時から将来の夢は小説家になることです。自分の小説を何冊も書いたことがありますが、本格的に売ろうとしたことがありません。だから、これから、夢がかなうように一心不乱に頑張ります。
Since I was a kid, my dream has been to become a novelist. But even though I've written volumes of my own fiction, I've never REALLY tried to sell anything. So from here on out, I'm going to focus all of my efforts on making my dream come true.