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.

Further Yo-ji Resources

Most of the time we try to do one of two things when posting yo-ji, hyougen. kotowaza, and other cool stuff:

1. We post something that we learned in conversation with Japanese people. We usually have a story to go along with it, might be able to relate it directly to our lives, we don't have to look up how to use it, and we can rest assured in the fact that it will be useful to us and to our readers because native-speakers use it.

2. We try to post something that lends itself to interesting cultural or historical content: a lot of times we'll look for phrases that are seasonally relevant, or have fascinating origins in Japanese (Chinese) history that will help us and our readers impress people with the range of our knowledge.

But sometimes we run dry, and we have to go yo-ji fishing. When that happens, here's what we use, and now with a little cash and some Amazon.co.jp, you can use them too.

「四字熟語」これだけ辞典
The Yojijukugo "All you need" Encylopedia
published by Escargot Books



This is something I inherited from 大づの先生, the most senior 国語先生 at Kawasoe-Chuugakko. My copy still has his name written down the spine. Sometimes I think he gave it to me so I'd stop asking him what stuff meant all the time. As you can see, it's very, very dense, but all-encompassing, with over 1700 四字熟語 and their definitions contained in its pages. Does not feature example sentences.

小学四字熟語ことわざ慣用句問題集
Grade School level: Commonly Used Yojijukugo and Proverb Workbook
published by さし書房


　 　 　
I lost the cover to my copy a while ago. This was the first yo-ji book I ever bought, and is still the easiest to use. The Japanese is easy to understand. The definitions are illustrated with pictures that... I guess they could be clearer, but they could also be more obscure. Also doesn't feature example sentences, but it does have quizzes where you have to choose the right saying for the situation or match the definition, etc. Pretty useful.

ことわざ・四字熟語に強くなる！
Increase Your Proverb and Yojijukugo Power!
published by 世界文化社



My yo-ji mentor, Otao-san, uses this book. It's like the Japanese equivalent of a book containing anecdotes or jokes or techniques or quotations to be used in speeches. It contains in-depth explanations of thousands of phrases, examples of the 使い方 for many of them, and is organized into sections based on theme: "Proverbs related to success," "Proverbs for when you're lost," "Yo-ji related to society and nature," and the very broad "Yo-ji related to life" (to name a few). It also has a running sidebar that's like a "On This Day in Japanese History," section. I haven't really looked at that much. Lot of people's names, written in kanji.

教科書によくでる四字熟語2009カレンダー
Textbook Yojijukugo 2009 Wall Calendar
published by 旺文社




Last but not least, I got this calendar as a house-warming present from the very same Otao-san. I find it extremely comforting because it only features three yo-ji a week, and if a Japanese publishing company can't put out more than that, The Daily Yo-ji's not doing so bad after all. It's designed so that elementary school students can also use it (all kanji glossed), which makes it easy to use in the bathroom where, unless you're Brett, you probably don't bring your electronics with you. And yes, I was given explicit instructions to hang it in my bathroom. When I laughingly promised to comply saying, 「毎日読まれるようにね,」 Otao-san corrected me by saying, 「毎日より、毎回！」

打打発止

ちょうちょう　はっし
chouchou hasshi

Before we get too much distance between ourselves and last week's 喧々囂々、侃々諤々、喧々諤々 EXPLOSION, I want to take the time to address a legitimate concern that reader Alex addressed in the comments section: that shit was hard.

Not only are the kanji involved ridiculous, but the first two expressions are rarely used in conversation, and the third is actually not even a real yo-ji!

If only there were a good 四字熟語 that meant roughly the same thing, was easy to use, even easier to remember, and contained a kick-ass sword-fighting metaphor... Oh, wait.

Definition:
刀などで互いに打ち合う音。転じで、刀で切り合うように激しくやりあうさま。言い合いのこと。
Translation:
1. A fierce clashing of words, resembling a fierce clashing of swords.

According to the 「四字熟語」これだけ辞典, which we also posted on today, this yo-ji can also be written like so: 丁丁発止. Internet searches reveal tons of examples of both, but since the book lists 打打発止 as the primary form, and the book has the virtue of being ancient, we're gonna use it as well.

丁々, as Rikai-chan will tell you, is the sound of chopping, and also lends itself to the sound of metal on metal. I'd imagine it as more metallic sounding, but then, I've never heard a mouse say ちゅう either. 発止 gets translated as "a loud clack;" the kanji, meaning "halted departure," convey the idea of something in motion (like a sword) coming to a quick, sudden stop (when it hits another sword).

Sounds like 打打発止 could be used in close proximity to one of Brett's earliest posts: しのぎを削る.

例文：そのアメリカ人二人が何を言っているか知りたいな。いつも英語で打々発止の口喧嘩をしているようにみえるのに、本当は仲が良さそうだ。
I wonder what those two Americans are saying. They're always shouting back and forth in English, like they're having a fierce dispute, but I've heard that they're actually really close.

Note:
If you ever have the opportunity to use this in connection with an actual sword fight, feel free. It can work literally as well.

Challenge: If you know who that anime character is at the top, quick, tell me where I can download a copy of that... I'm incredibly embarrassed to admit that it's the ONLY incarnation of that franchise that I haven't seen.

One Hundred... and FOUR.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!
We here at The Daily Yo-ji wanted to do something special to commemorate the posting of our 100th 四字熟語. But not only did we fail at "special," we failed at other, more important things, like noticing or counting...

So today we're celebrating our 104th 四字熟語! That's right. Of 197 posts on a website called "The Daily Yoji" which has been running for over a year, we've managed to pass on 104 4-character idiomatic expressions!

That's over 52% 四字-goodness.

That's over 416 kanji (though, with doubles and repeats, maybe closer to 375?)!

That's so many yo-ji that we don't remember many of them!

Woooooot!

That's why our 104th 四字 anniversary present to you is THIS.

Anki is the best free create-your-own Japanese flashchards program out there, and I'm assuming that many of you already use it. If you don't, now you have one more reason to start. Every 四字熟語 that has appeared on one of our posts, even if it didn't merit an entire post of it's own (I'm looking at you, 一生懸命), is collected and included in the first Daily Yoji Anki deck.

I've organized it so that it works for recognition only: you see the kanji and must recall the reading and meaning. If you're keen on remembering to write them all out yourself, once you download the file, you can reorganize it to include production as well.

In addition to the readings and meanings of each 四字熟語, you'll find occasional notes on usage, and labels that let you know how Common or Rare each yo-ji is, so you'll have a sense of how confident you can be if you want to use it. The labels range from "Extremely Common" to "Extremely Rare," and were determined through a complex process that took into account many factors:

• Anecdotal evidence
• Google searches
  
• Native-speaker response in the comments sections
• Number of times I've heard or seen them occur naturally
• Reactions to my attempts at using them
• Whether or not my girlfriend has ever heard of them
• Whether or not Nirav posted them

... so there might be a margin of error.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy them, and I hope they help you retain some of what you've picked up here. If you find yourself interested in the meanings of the specific kanji, or suspect that a yo-ji might have an interesting origin, the search bar in the upper left corner of this page will help you out.

Thanks again for all your comments!

Jeff, Brett, and Niro