夜郎自大

やろうじだい
yaroujidai

や　is for 「やった！」 As in, 「やった！このや行シリーズがやっと終わるみたい！」

Today will be the last Yojijukugo post that starts with や、ゆ、or　よ! Maybe not the last one FOREVER, but I think we've got enough to smack the smile off of any uppity bangumis that wanna tell us WE don't know Yojijukugo.

(Though, while we're still here, I'd personally like to request that Nirav make a KN^4 post on 余裕, cause seriously, that business is complicated!)

Today's entry is a great one to know as a foreigner in Japan, because I think it aptly describes the attitude that many of us are prone to adopting when we forget that we're not as awesome as Japan can make us feel.

Also, I found the PERFECT picture for this. BOOM!

Definition:
自分の力量をわきまえず、仲間うちで威張ること。知識も力もないのに尊大にふるまうことのたとえ。
Translations:
1. Getting a big head about being a big fish in a small pond, while forgetting that the world is mostly ocean.
2. Using your strength to be the boss of your microcosm, in a way that fails to acknowledge your real worth in the macrocosm. (What's your worth in the macrocosm NOW, fish?)
3. Act with reckless arrogance.

自大, using the kanji for "oneself" and "big" are apparent enough. 夜郎, rather than being ateji for 野郎、is actually the name of a very tiny independent country that we call Yelang in what is now China. The king of Yelang, upon receiving an emissary from the Han Dynasty (yeah, THAT Han Dynasty) displayed remarkably poor judgement (as well of a lack of knowledge about what the Han Dynasty was) and made some unfortunate boasts.

I don't know how accurate this story is, as the accounts of said king also include a Taketori Monogatari-esque birth...

Use 夜郎自大 with になる。Or you can say of someone or something: 夜郎自類である。

例文：
この学校の六年生の態度はやばいですね。行動を正してやる先輩もないし、夜郎自大になってしまいました。来年は中学生になることを知識してないみたい。
This school's 6th graders are rough, huh? With no older students to keep them in line, they've gotten recklessly arrogant. It's like they've forgotten that they're gonna be middle school first years in just a year.

Japanese Language Trivia of the Day:

やーーーーーー

Yeah, we're still rolling with the や行 over here, and today that means a great word to know for your Japanese traffic accidents, subway suicides, dolphin slaughterings, arsons... what else is morbidly entertaining?

野次馬
やじうま
yajiuma

Rubbernecker; Gawker;
Spectators of something not intended for spectating (see explanation below).

Baseball game: ×　Motocross rally:　×
House fire:　○　Car accident:　○

Indulge me by letting me give you a quick explanation of where this one comes from. The 野次 bit can be used on it's own to mean to heckle or to jeer (used like this: 野次を指す） but they're actually 当て字, chosen to fit the meaning of this phrase a little bit better.

The original phrase actually began as 親父馬　（おやじうま; old man horse) which was what you called a horse that was too old to be used for either riding or labor, but which, for some reason, you haven't yet shipped off to the 糊 factory.

An old useless horse, just standing around taking in the scenery then became a metaphor for people with no business being involved in something, loafing around, scoping it out anyway. It kind of connotes blowing off your own responsibilities (responsibilities like driving your car at a reasonable speed) to indulge in something undignified (gawking at a flipped k-car on the side of the road, for example).

I'm not sure if rubbernecker, or rubberneck is an Americanism, but now that I've been in Japan, I can't ever hear it without thinking of the original rubbernecker, 轆轤首。

The Russel Series

Morning, yo-ji fans. Continuing on in the や行 vein, today we bring you three useful yo-jis that scholars (at least, one amateur scholar that I know of) like to refer to as "The Russel Series."

勇往邁進
ゆうおうまいしん
yuuoumaishin

Definition:
困難をものともしないで、ひたすら突き進むこと。
Translation:
Pushing forward, without regard for difficulties or distress.

Think of this one as in the same league with 猪突猛進, but without the negative connotation. Use it with する。

(I found this tiger/Great wave picture and thought it was too awesome not to include it in this post. Look at that tiger, ignoring the fact that there's a giant wave coming and that tigers are not ocean creatures. He's gonna do his best anyway. The pic comes from this blog.)

優柔不断
ゆうじゅうふだん
yuujuu fudan
Definition:
ぐずぐずしていて決断の遅いこと。決断力に乏しいこと。
Translation:
Indecisiveness.

I'm not sexist or anything but, some sources also translate this yoji as: effeminacy. Hah. Use it as a な adjective.

用意周到
よういしゅうとう
youi shuutou
Definition:
何事にも用意がすみずみまで行き届き、手抜かりのないこと。
Translation:
Thoroughly, completely prepared, having left nothing out.

Maybe you could think of this along the same lines as one of the two interpretations of 正々堂々？ You can use it as a な adjective, or with に。A 用意周到な旦那 is not necessarily a 亭主関白,　but a dude could be both, right? A 四角四面 guy on the other hand, would definitely like this 四字熟語。

Me talking about me on YouTube... Also Yo- ji stuff!

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.

ガンボ： ジェフの料理教室 １

YouTubing...

I'm doing some Japanese YouTubing now, so that will show up here. I'm planning on talking language stuff and Yoji stuff, so if you're interested check them out. The other ones will be cooking and food related, so if you want to hear me talk about restaurants and recipes in broken Japanese, よろしく on those too.

Thanks.