少数精鋭

しょうすうせいえい
shousuu seiei

Today's yo-ji is a useful one for anyone considering going into any kind of business endeavor in Japan, as it represents, I think, one important concept in organization and philosophy. I was reminded of it last week by Jeff's 知る人ぞ知る post, although the meaning is somewhat removed from that specific phrase. (For another business philosophy phrase, see 鶏口牛後)

During college, I interned in the New York office of a Japanese newspaper, and one of the first things I noticed was that our office was significantly smaller than those of any of our peer publications. As an unpaid intern, I wasn't ever really expected to work all that hard, but it was pretty clear that the paid staff, especially the bureau chief, was working pretty hard almost non-stop. I remember talking to my boss about this at lunch one day, and he told me that the company's philosophy was to have 少数精鋭 rather than a large number of worker drones.

I'm sure our US readers all recognize this...

I don't think it'll be too useful to go over every kanji in this phrase, but I do think that the last two are worthy of our time here. First, we have 精. Rikai-chan will tell you essentially what it means. It's good to know for words like 精力 or 精気, or any of the hundreds of other words that contain it. (Yes, we'll skip that one. Maybe we'll put it up on the Nightly Yoji one day.) 鋭, meaning sharp, is another good one to know, because, as in English, it carries both the physically sharp (like a knife) and mentally sharp (like... me) meanings. Which brings us to our:

Definition:
少数の選りすぐった人々。また、その少数で事に当たること。
Translation:
1. The few, the proud, the mighty
2. The select few

例文：
うちは少数精鋭主義だから、よそより人数少ないけど、実力では誰にも負けない自信がある。
We believe in maintaining a small, select group. So, even though we have less people than our competitors, we're confident that we are second-to-none in terms of ability.

Good luck, and godspeed.

教科書に載っていない日本語

夜露死苦！

We spend a lot of time telling you ways to fancy up your Japanese. TOO MUCH TIME! It's always "Ancient Chinese history" this and "archaic grammar" that. Well you know what? All your nancy-pancy conjugations aren't gonna do you a lick of good when THIS guy tears through the sliding door of your dojo and challenges everybody inside.
「ほら！何やってん、オメー！？」 he slurs through his perpetual sneer as he starts pushing you around. Indeed, the situation has gotten pretty やばい - the hyper-casual (or often outright insulting) ways of ヤンキー語 will be the only way you get out of this unscathed. If you consider being forced to buy him some アンパン "unscathed."

What follows are some basic guidelines to either understanding this brand of speech (which is quite common on tv shows, anime, etc) or using it yourself (which can be either endearing or completely inappropriate. Use with caution!)

あい・い　＝＞　え

This point confused me to no end when I was first trying to learn some rougher ways to express myself. For example, I learned that "shut up!" was "うるせー！" from watching anime, but "うるさい" based on textbooks. I didn't realize until much later that they were the same word, except the former was altered to make it a more bad-ass manner of speaking. This rule applies to an almost unlimited number of cases: "じゃない" becomes "じゃねー", "すごい" becomes "スゲー", and so on. It can even apply to words that end in other vowels as it did above, changing "おまえ" to "オメー". Adjectives are the most common victim of this slurring. Think of it as adding "so damned" or something similar before the text you're talking. "スマブラがなんておもしれぇ!" becomes "Smash brothers is so much goddamn fun!"

いる　＝　ん

This one applies mostly to verbs, and is reflective of an underlying rule of ヤンキー語 - much is either shortened or changed to enable easy speaking. Don't believe me? Just give it a try with almost any of the examples I've given so far. "え" is probably the easiest of the 母音 (vowels), and "ん" is a step easier than "いる".

As a quick example of the above: "ガタガタいってんじゃねぇよ！" "Quit your goddamned babbling!"

人（ひと）　＝　いつ

Best employed with phrases like 「誰、そいつ？」, or "Who the hell is that guy?" It can also be used in the phrase "どいつもこいつも", which can be loosely translated as "every-f***ing-body". As with all Japanese, tone and context will determine the severity of your speaking. Still, remember that this - like most things I'll cover here - are not something you want to use in a professional setting. I once developed the bad habit of using language like this almost exclusively for a period of time, to the point where normal ways of speaking began to elude me. I was in the middle of class and wanted to indicate one of the students, but - not knowing his name and wanting to do more than grunt and point - gestured with an emphatic "そいつ！". Though this got a lot of laughter from the kids, the teacher was noticeably flushed. I've since used it in other classes, but affected the ヤンキー voice while doing so to make clear it was a joke.

ほら！

A lot of you are probably thinking - ほら？ Isn't that pretty tame? Well that's because you're not saying it right. Another part of speaking this way is rolling your "r"s, or 「巻き舌で言う」. If you roll your "r"s just a bit each time you say "ほら", you'll have the Japanese (rough) equivalent of interspersing your speech with "hey" or "yo"... although a good sight ruder, depending on circumstances.

These, as I see them, are the fundamentals of ヤンキー語文法. If you just couple this with wanton use of the rudest imperative you know （ほら！アンパン買って来い！）, you'll have a good start. The following video does a pretty good job of unifying all of these points while being completely hilarious at the same time. For the full effect I recommend watching the whole video, but those eager to figure out what a "young key" is, just hit play, and enjoy!

On a final note - if there is interest, I'll post some links that will let you expand your ヤンキー単語. Just like English, Japanese has a few colorful expressions that pop up a lot in this mode of speech. But that is a post for another time, even if the place is right on.

鶏口牛後

けいこうぎゅうご
keikou gyuugo

~The first in an occasional series of cow-related words and phrases~

As you all are aware (or should be), 2009 is the year of the ox/cow, depending on which language you are speaking. Unlike my two co-writers, one of whom is a boar/pig and the other a rat, I happened to have been born in a cow year, which means that this year I am a 年男, or man born under the same sign as the current year. Accordingly, it's been my plan to do a series of posts on "cow-words" in honor of both the new year and myself for some time now, and this post is the first in that series.

This is something of an odd yoji to start off with, because it doesn't give the most flattering view of cows, but I'm starting with it because it's probably among the more useful ushi-kotoba that I've come across. 鶏口牛後 is another one of those yoji's that has an ancient Chinese backstory, so gather round for storytime!

Back in the day, during the Warring States Period in China, the country of Han seemed on the brink of becoming a tributary state to the expanding country of Qin (later the first dynasty of China). Seeing this, and knowing that becoming a tributary would mean the certain doom of Han, Su Chin (I think - his name, 蘇秦, is read as そしん in Japanese) went to the king and said:

むしろ鶏口となるも、牛後となるなかれ
むしろけいこうとなるも、ぎゅうごとなるなかれ
keikou to naru mo, gyuugo to naru nakare

Better to be a chicken's mouth than a cow's butt!

Jet Li as the first Qin emperor in the stinkfest third Mummy movie...

Moved by these words (and not wanting to be a cow's butt), the King of Han decided against joining the Qin, and instead formed alliances with other neighboring states against them. (Of course, they all ended up being subsumed by the Qin anyway...) 鶏口牛後 is an abbreviation of that famous line.

I know what I want the next time I go to Japan...

Definition:
大きな組織で細々とやるのより、たとえ小さい組織でもトップになれ
Translation:
1. Rather be the first in a village than second in Rome.
2. Better to be a big fish in a little pond, than vice versa.

例文： 大手の企業に入ったって、トップになれる倍率はものすごく低い。だったら鶏口牛後の精神で起業をしたほうがましだ。

Even if you get into a big company, your chances of making it to the top are slim to none. That's why you're better off remembering that it's better to be first in a village than second in Rome and starting something on your own.

I know what I want the next time I go to Japan...

表現 Break: 知る人ぞ知る

This 表現 is actually a 表現, and not a ことわざ. I came across it for the first time well over a year ago, in an article that Claytonian of The Hopeless Romantic sent me. The article is about a hidden restaurant that a guy runs out of his junk/memorabilia filled house somewhere in Nagasaki, and though I could understand a fair amount of it back then, there was one phrase that was too far over my head, no matter how hard I tried to figure it out.

知る人ぞ知る
しる　ひと　ぞ　しる
shiru hito zo shiru

Translation:
Only those who know, know, and they know it well.
Conversely, if you're not in the know, you're not.

The hidden restaurant in the article remains hidden, because it refuses to divulge its address, referring to it only as 知る人ぞ知る長崎の穴場スポット: A nice little spot in Nagasaki, well-known and well-liked by a select few. Both Clay and I were of the opinion that it would be really, really cool to figure out a way to become 常連 or お得意 さん at a place like that.

There were a few reasons I couldn't figure this phrase out at the time: context, timing, and a lack of grammar knowledge.

When I got a Japanese friend to help me try to find out where this place was, they explained 知る人ぞ知る, by saying "People who don't know, won't know," which is a decent job of translating contextually, but not literally. Literally, this expression emphasizes KNOWING, but her translation put the emphasis on NOT KNOWING. Which was bad timing because I had just learned the ～ずに construction, I kept trying to think up a way to connect 知る人ぞ, to the idea of negation, like you would do with 知らずに. Why? Because they both had 'z' sounds, and because I wasn't yet familiar with the way to use こそ to stress a subject.

Turns out that ぞ, is yet another archaic feature of Japanese, still preserved in some turns of speech today. It's an old way of saying "こそ," which makes it much, much easier to understand. Who knows? People who know こそ know.

例文：
A-san: あなたは外国人なのに、日本の一般人より多くの四字熟語を知っている理由って、なぜ？
Why is it that even though you're a foreigner, you know more yojijukugo than your average Japanese person?
B-san: 知る人ぞ知るウェブサイトのおかげですよ。
It's thanks to a certain site that those of us in the know use...

日常茶飯

にちじょう さはん
nichijyou sahan

Give us this day our daily bread, but if you can't do that, at least give us our Daily Yo-ji.

Today's 四字熟語 contains the Japanese equivalent of the idea of "daily bread," although... free of the religious connotations. 茶飯 (also read ちゃめし: lit. tea rice) is rice, prepared with tea and other seasonings. Brett's a big fan of お茶漬け, which is kind of the same thing, at least to my 外人 sensibilities. What makes it the equivalent of 'daily bread,' is in its simplicity.

Just as bread is perceived to be the 代表 of western cuisine, rice and tea are two of the pillars of the Japanese diet. No point in getting into the パン食、米食 debate. No matter how much you might chafe at the idea of "bread" as summing up your country's cuisine, it won't change the fact that Japanese people see it that way. Nor will it change the fact that Japanese people DON'T chafe at the idea of being gastronomically identified with rice. That's the way things are.

On a less debatable point, the addition of "日常' also helps draw the "daily bread" analogy nicely.
You can use 日常 to talk about anything that is routine, ordinary, regular, everyday to the point of being 当たり前.

Of course, the same thing could be said of the entire phrase as well.

Definition:
日常の食事。転じて毎日のありふれた物事や行動のこと。
Translation:
1. An everyday occurrence.
2. Something perfectly ordinary and expected.

Try using this with である。

例文：電車で携帯で話すことは行儀が悪いけど、携帯でメールやインターネットやゲームをすることは日常茶飯であります。
In Japan it's considered bad form to talk on your cell phone on the train, but using it for mail, the internet, or for games is about as common as rice.

教科書に載っていない日本語

Even More Japanese That Ain't in the Book

Nirav promises to finish up his series explaining some of the nuances of the many words you can use to talk about one's condition, especially some of the words using 気, but in the meantime, I'm gonna toss in a few more feelings phrases "to help make your 言い回し more 日本人ぽい."

One thing that was really difficult for me, when I first came to Japan, was explaining to people how I felt, especially if how I felt was anything other than "元気." Nirav will get into this more in his post, but really, the only thing I was equipped with, in terms of saying, "I don't feel good" was "気分悪い."

However, telling people that I was 気分悪い almost always had the effect of making them think that I was sick, and giving me more attention when most of the time, what I wanted to let them know was that I was in the mood to be left alone.

Thanks to Brett, I now know that I can simply explain that "the bug's whereabouts are bad" but what about getting more specific about why you're not in a good mood?

Luckily, if you're in Japan long enough to form close relationships, especially romantic ones, you'll learn how to express all kinds of moods. And if you want to know what to say without having to get in a bunch of fights with a significant other, well, that's why The Daily Yo-ji is here.

苛々する
いらいらする
iraira suru

to be/get frustrated; to feel frustration

Do NOT trust Rikai-chan on this one. I've NEVER heard this used to mean "getting nervous." See the next point on the list for that. Use this to express frustration, being fed up, and having things get on your nerves.


ドキドキする
どきどきする
dokidoki suru

or

緊張する
きんちょうする
kinchou suru

to be nervous; to feel nervous tension

ドキドキ is the sound of a heart beat, and when you get nervous, your heart starts beating faster. These are great words to use about anything that makes you nervous: having to give a speech, trying something for the first time, when the pressures on you to do or say the right thing, getting on a roller coaster, petting a lion, etc.　

MOST of the time, you can use these two interchangeably. When I was meeting my girlfriend's family for the first time, I could (and did) use BOTH　緊張する and ドキドキする。

However, when you're with a boyfriend or girlfriend, you might feel 緊張, but you'd be better off telling them that you are ドキドキしている. 緊張 might be interpreted as, "You make me tense." ドキドキ is like, "You give me butterflies," or "You make my heart beat faster."

もやもやする
moyamoya suru

to feel sad; to be upset; to be gloomy

This is good for when you're down about something, and can't (or don't want to) explain why. When nothing's wrong, but you're still upset, or when a bunch of little things have combined to make you feel like EVERYTHING is depressing, that's もやもや.


いじける
ijikeru

to get upset; to reach the breaking point; to be fussy;
to throw a tantrum

Again, leave the Rikai-chan translation alone on this one. It'll just confuse you (to become perverse? inferiority complex? what?). It does have some other applications, but here's the easiest way to think of it: a child throwing a temper tantrum is いじけている. You can use it about yourself or others if it's a situation where the person in question is so upset that they can't do anything but be upset, or if they're making a show of how upset they are, like a crying child. I don't recommend using it, because I associate it with things like being わがまま (making a scene when you don't get your way) and the idea of 切れる emotionally where you just SNAP, but as others have pointed out, it also has the nuance of "being fussy," which, just like in English, can sometimes be thought of as endearing in small doses. And one more fun note about いじける：　You can call people who are overdoing it, "いじけ虫." But watch out. If they really are pissed, you might make it worse!

*EDIT*

After I posted this, Brett had trouble looking up　いじける、which lead to long conversations with native Japanese speakers about いじける (it's 標準語, so it wasn't one of those "DAMN YOU, SAGA-BEN[ben = dialect]!" moments), and then today we got a comment from reader mico saying some of the same things. Bolded phrases above have been added to reflect where we needed to make changes, and a few sentences that were incorrect have been removed. Thanks for the input!

*EDIT*

Japanese Cultural Trivia of the Day:

These are words that I considered tossing into a 教科書に載っていない post, but then I figured it be more fun to do them like this.

裏
うら
ura


表
おもて
omote

裏, not to be confused with the homonymous 浦 from 津々浦々, has tons of meanings, but the common thread that they share: you can't see the 裏 from the front.

表, which you can find in 表面, 表現, and 代表, has an equal abundance of interpretation and represents the opposite of 裏. It's the visible surface.

You might remember both of these from 表裏一体.

They work really well for talking about buildings and locations (駐車場は裏にあります) and I hear them a lot at work, where 表 is the part of the bakery that the customers frequent, and 裏 is where the baking gets done (「表の掃除終わりましたか。」とか「裏から鉄板持ってきて。」).

But where you can hear it and use it most often is in today's cultural trivia:

裏か表！

裏か (うらか;uraka) as it gets abbreviated in speech, is a system of dividing people into two groups. I want to call it a kid's game, but then... it's not a game, though it often precedes games, and much like じゃん拳　(じゃんけん；janken), everyone in Japan does it, regardless of their age.

Whenever you have a situation where you need two groups, or two teams, you can find people doing 裏か表, which works like this: 裏, as it's meaning implies, refers to 手の平, the part of your hand that can't be seen from the front, so... your palm. 表 in this case is　手の甲, the back of your hand. Everyone stands in a circle, puts a hand in, and then everyone (or at least SOMEONE) in the group chants 「裏か表！」 while shaking/flipping their hand back and forth between the two states of hand-existence.

On the final chanted syllable, everyone picks a side and thrusts their hand out, showing either 裏 or　表. If the numbers of people who chose each are approximately even, then 裏s form one group, 表ｓ form the other. And if the numbers are way off, the process is repeated. Just like じゃんけん has あいこでしょう,　when you have to do it again, there's a different chant. What that chant is, however, is subject for disagreement. The kids that I learned it from always said 「手、手、のって！」 Yuri says simply 「っせ！」 There are even little kid versions that get longer and ridiculous, 「裏かオモ、てんぷら、ハンバーガー。。。」　and on into あほ臭い territory. Have people in other parts of Japan heard other versions?

裏 and 表 can also be linked to ideas of 本音 and 建前, as well as martial arts, but those are subjects for other posts.