Japanese for gesticulators

Every foreign language comes with its own gestures. I’m not talking about the peace sign the Japanese simply feel compelled to flash whenever a camera is nearby, but the general gestures and signs people make in daily life and conversations. Japan has a few peculiarities in this field, which I’ll try to explain herein.To point to yourself you point to your nose, not your chest, and using your index finger, not your thumb or any other. Often the finger comes close to touching the nose but usually it doesn’t. The “ji” kanji in the word “jibun” (“self”) actually, historically, is based on the shape of the nose. You’ll have to be shown the transition to see the link, but it’s there.
To point to someone with your index finger is not cricket. In stead you hold out your open hand, palm up, as if offering a tray of fresh Pimms or a nicely stacked pyramid of Ferrero Rochets.. This doesn’t just go for the person you’re talking to but anyone and often even anything you’re pointing to, but especially the person directly in front of you.
To call someone over from, say, the opposite end of a room you hold out your open hand, palm down, and wave it up and down. Often it is jokingly said foreigners who do not know this get the impression they are shooed away in stead, though you’d have to be pretty dim to think someone who is far away from you and eagerly calling your name wants to increase the distance between you two.
To slip past a person, through a conversation or anywhere where your route is blocked by other people you hold out your open palm, karate-chop style or, if you wish, in a “why I oughtta!” slap-ready stance Historically it showed the other persons you were unarmed (not carrying a sword) and were no threat. I personally reinterpret it as “if you don’t move I’ll slap you!”
On paper one doesn’t tick off good things, like for example the correct answer in a test, but draw a circle. Games players may have seen this in imported games. The red circle means “good”, “okay” in the same way a green tick would do that in Europe. So instead of giving the thumbs up if asked if you’re okay, or if something was done properly, you make a little circle with your thumb and index finger. You usually don’t fan out the rest of your fingers though, as in holding an illegal cigarette, but keep them fairly close together giving the effect of holding a small pole.
If something is bad, though, the universally accepted sign of badness is used in Japan too: the cross. Using either both index fingers, your flat, open hands or, if you want to be melodramatic, both your arms you make a cross to show something isn’t hunky-dory.
If you want to show someone he is being sucked up to, or indeed that you know the person speaking to you is sucking up relentlessly, you can make this known by rubbing a first on an open palm, mortal and pestle style. Where this comes from I don’t know, but it’s an easy way of saying “You’re not really handsome, JC. She was just sucking up because she wants free English conversation lessons”. Damn.
If you are referring to someone with a dubious background, say a pachinko hall proprietor, you can indicate your assumption by dragging a pinky finger over your cheek. This implies a scar, and as we all know all yakuza have scars on their cheek.
Similarly, if someone is exceptionally dandy and you expect a certain limp-wristedness you can indicate this by holding your open hand to the side of your face. This looks like you’re shielding your mouth as you say the word “homosexual” to the person you are talking to, but I have no idea if that is where it comes from.
If you’re stuck in the middle of an overcrowded train carriage and your stop is about to come up there is a handy way of telling the persons in front of you. By roughly showing a fist in the small of their back you can communicate all of “sorry, old bean. I know he train is still moving and the doors haven’t even opened yet, and though you yourself have absolutely no place to go I am letting you know right now that you need to make space for me so I can disembark without filth like you getting in my way”. Similarly a rough shove of the elbow backwards can communicate all of “you can bleeding well wait for the doors to open and everyone else to get off, you rude feck, and if you push me again I’ll give you a dry slap”.
Sometimes body language is a wonderful thing.

Japanese for neologists

Language is often lacking, especially when it comes to describing situations or things that didn’t exist, say, 50 years ago. Many people have made efforts to supplement English with new definitions, most notably Douglas Adams and John Lloyd in their highly recommended “The Meaning of Liff”. Japanese is no exception; my lack in skill can attribute to my own failings in making myself understood but even my Japanese colleagues must sometimes shrug and admit defeat when asked to teach me some new words. “Sorry, JC,” they say, “There is just no need in Japanese for a word like that.” Well, I say there is and though I am a mere beginner on the long road to native Japanese speaker I am confident there is a real need for the following words to be accepted into the language as a whole.

(ge-gai) (pronounced: “gay-guy”)

n., A foreigner working in the Japanese game industry.
Derived from the Japanese for “game” and “foreigner” (“gaikokkujin”), heavily abbreviated.
Example: “JC is a gegai, the poor, stupid bastard.”

(lip-zangyou)

n., Unpaid overtime that serves no other purpose than to stroke the boss’s ego.
From the Japanese “lip service” and “service overtime” (“service zangyou”).
NOTE: When you’re offered something as “service” in restaurants, it means it’s on the house, free; hence service zangyou only means unpaid overtime (you offer the “service” to the company). It could be necessary overtime or not, but which it is isn’t clear from the word. “Lip service”, despite what images that may conjure up, simply means to say things without meaning them, sometimes, but not exclusively, used to mean “to suck up”.
Example: “Yes, sorry dear, I’ll be home late again tonight. Lip-zangyou, don’t you know.”


(ani-aka)

n., The high-pitched voice, pitched somewhere in between an anime character’s and a baby on Helium, that certain Japanese females affect in the mistaken belief it makes them more “cute”.
From the Japanese “animation” (“anime”) and “baby” (“aka-chan”).
Example: “I didn’t understand a word she said, she spoke in ani-aka. I’ve got a headache now.”


(gaichirei)

n., A small temporary slouch or bob of the head foreigners automatically instigate when passing through doorways in Japan.
From the Japanese for foreigner (“gaikokkujin”) and “bow” (“ichirei”).
NOTE: After you first move here and bash your head against several doorframes you’ll find yourself instinctively doing the gaijin bow when entering trains, passing through doorways or walking underneath suspended objects regardless of the headspace available.
Example: “Ouch, that bump looks nasty! Don’t worry, after a few more of those you’ll learn to gaichirei.”

Japanese for game geeks

If you’re really a hardcore game fanatic you should already know where the big Japanese companies get their names from. If not, it’s still an interesting insight into some corporate Japanese thinking. In Europe and America game companies, especially recently, like to go for, what I call, the “double-barrel comedy misfire”; i.e. vaguely naughty or silly names that mean nothing and are often instantly forgotten; things like “Mollusk Pants” or “Simian Nuts”. The Japanese, with a few notable exceptions, take their naming a little more seriously, and though there can be occasions for hilarious Engrish and more recently pretentious and sometimes misused Latin, their motives are often pure.

Though even the Japanese releases show the famous oblong Nintendo logo when you boot them up, their office signs, corporate details and stock-market listing all use the kanji version ; “nin” (charge, responsibility), “ten” (Heaven, sky) and “do-“ (temple, shrine or magnificent). This is often translated as “leave luck to the heavens”, which seems a bit of a liberal translation but one that sums up their business acumen pretty well.

Capsule Computers, another good example of the Japanese desire to cut words short. Of note is the fact in Japanese there is no “-m”. There are syllables beginning with “m-“ but not ending with one. For this the Japanese use the “-m”, which is the universal soft-stop. So in katakana you actually write “kappu-conn”.

The shortening of the name “Service Games”, which was previously “Standard Games”. Though it is possibly the most Japanese company you’ll encounter, with all the Japanese corporate culture you’d expect, and it has, bafflingly, a slew of rabid fans it was in actuality founded by American, David Rosen, and was only taken over by Mr. Nakayama in 1979.

Previously Sega’s AM7 team they took on the name “Overworks” after their boss Mr. Oba, which sounds pretty much identical to the Japanese pronunciation of “over”. I wonder if he intended to advertise the working conditions so openly.

Shin Nihon Kikaku (“New Japan(ese) Project” or “New Japan(ese) Design”)

Big (“oo”, “dai”) East (“higashi”, “to-“)

“Genki” means, literally “happy”, “healthy” or “fine”. I think it is best translated as the French “cava”, encompassing all that is good and happy about someone or something. If you think the logo looks like it’s been drawn by a six-year old that’s probably because it was.

The old “splice two names together” trick perpetrated by Kou Shibusawa and Eiji Fukuzawa; except, of course, these people don’t exist and the name is simply a joke anagram of Keio University where husband and wife founders Yoichi and Keiko Erikawa studied.

From Nakamura Manufacturing, who created coin-operated machines to Namco. How’s that for shortening a name?

Japanese for texters

The emoticon first made its appearance in the late 12th century and has since ruled the internet with its lopsided smiles, winks and tongue-waggery. Though it has successfully lent nuance to the typed message it still, to this day, requires the physical effort of turning one’s head to correctly see the resemblance to anything remotely facial. The Japanese, on the other hand, lazy rotters that they are, have developed their own version of the emoticon which both lends itself to a wide range of creative variations as well as removing the onerous head-turning aspects that have plagued our Western emails for so long. People who regularly visit Japanese sites will be familiar with these already, but it’s worth it to see a few of them listed.

Some of the more popular ones are fairly easy to use, even in regular ASCII and my mobile phone has, amongst a wide variety of graphical icons and emoticons a range of pre-made Japanese smileys. Some of the more elaborate ones require kanji or extended characters for the full effect. There is, however, no true rule book for the use and creation of these, apart from the use of the brackets to create the shape of the head. Anything else is pretty much do-as-you-please, as long as the end result graphically illustrates the emotion you are incapable of putting into words.

The basic shape, as you can see, is the open and close brackets forming the sides of the head. An underbar forms the mouth and a variety of symbols can be used for the eyes. Though not strictly necessary you can offset the face a little to give a 3/4th perspective, rather than a full-on head.

To add extra emotion just copy the little symbols you see in manga. Here, for example

we see two smiley faces, eyes closed but raised, happy eyebrows and a typical blush of happiness. The usual big drop of sweat, which denotes embarrassment or anxiety in comics can be applied too, like thus:

As you can see with the downcast eyes this emoticon is humbly bowing, sweating and saying “sorry!” Sometimes, of course, the face alone isn’t enough, so you can add characters for hands. If you are so deeply sorry that you need to prostrate yourself, show the hands on either side of the head resting on the floor.

To show support or general happiness there are a variety of cheering smileys. I think you’ll notice the forward and backward slash as upraised arms motif here.

I think that pretty much covers the basics. A few more examples:

Fan-feckin-tastic!

Heh heh.

Crying

A bit miffed

Knackered

Oh noes!

WOW!

Dead…

But my all time personal favourite is this:

I often have to stop myself putting this one in my emails’ signature file. The kanji forming the bird is “deko” which means bump, more or less. It’s one of the simpler kanji out there and it wonderfully illustrative.

As mentioned above, the Japanese emoticon is open to a lot of creativity, so experiment away!

Japanese for silly people

One of the most fun aspects of the Japanese language is the use of onomatopoeia, even in speech, officially phenomimes and psychomimes, to denote emotions or feelings or simply used as shortcuts. It sounds ridiculous to start with but these are such fun that I often can’t help myself using them. Be warned that using some of the more esoteric ones will raise some eyebrows and possibly cast aspersions on your maturity or sexuality.

This is the sound of your heartbeat. If you are nervous and your heart beats quickly you can indicate so by saying “doki doki”.

Shiny, sparkly stuff. As in “kira kira little star”. Or if someone finally had a good wash and his face is all gleaming and shiny, or after you have viciously attacked your teeth with a toothbrush.

Officially, if one can speak of official translations, this is the sound a gun makes in comics, but can also be used to denote doing things in quick succession or “like a shot”, as it were. For example “just create these assets quickly and gan gan put them in the game.”

If you’re the kind of person to get terribly excited about things, you can tell your hapless compatriots by exclaiming “waku waku”. Holding up two balled fists in the air while keeping your elbows tucked in your side will complete the picture.

I always thought this was the sound a monkey makes in comics, but apparently it can also be used to denote excitement and general happiness.

If you have been starving yourself or it’s lunchtime you may want to tell whomever you are talking to how famished you are with “peko peko”. It’s the sound of your empty stomah screaming for immediate attention.

To be “pera pera” is every foreigner’s dream; to be fluent. Of course it can be used for any language but if you’re speaking Japanese and people tell you how “pera pera” you are it means your Japanese is pretty good. Remember though that your Japanese is only fluent if people stop telling you how good it is. “Pera pera” is somewhere midway between “Nihongo jouzu ne!” (“You’re very good at Japanese!”), which means you can just about say “hello” and “thank you”, and the absolute lack of compliments, which means you are truly fluent.

After you have soaked in a nice volcanically heated spring water bath your skin is smooth and lovely and “tsuru tsuru”; it denotes the smoothness to the touch. It can be said of many things, like a salaryman’s bald head or that strange rubber robot toy.

This dubious one is quite literally the sound a well-endowed woman makes when, say, jogging, or playing extreme volleyball on the beach of a tropical island. Very little imagination is needed here in understanding or using this particular onomatopoeia.

There are literally a “quite some” amount of these, so a quick Google search should provide you with countless more minutes of hilarity and confusion.

Japanese for aggressive people

If you’re planning on acting like an a.s.b.o. baiting yob in Japan, and if you plan to use the train during rush hours this is probably a given, your teachers will not be much use to you. To learn this kind of language you’ll have to ask your colleagues over a few cigarettes. This is quite fun in itself as you repeat your newly learned swearwords to great hilarity in front of other colleagues who will feign shock and jokingly chastise the person who taught you for corrupting this pure and innocent foreigner. Alternatively you can just read this public service post.

Remember that when Japanese people shout and bark they are scary but when foreigners do so they are just weird foreigners. The very best way to impress your anger onto others is to cock your head back and to the side a little and mumble or be at least softly spoken. A wry or evil smile may even enhance the effect. As proof I offer the difference when I once had a futile shouting match with a jostling commuter as opposed to the time a guy was complaining my arm was in his face (it was the other way round from my point of view) and I just calmly told him “shouganai” (“too bad”). The former situation was embarrassing and unresolved, the latter resulted in the man rushing away from me to the next carriage as soon as he was able to.

When someone stands in your way, a common occurrence in the entry halls of shoes-off izakayas, you can tell them to move with
but that isn’t really hard enough. It means “you’re in the way!” and can be used jokingly, affectionately or semi-seriously, but when you really want someone the “get the feck out of my face” you can say
Or if someone is being loud and obnoxious you can tell them so with
which means “noisy!” and infers “shut up!” You can enhance the effect by speaking in the vulgate and slurring
which means the same and comes from the same word but sounds a whole lot ruder.

In Japan you will get stared at occasionally and it’s best to get used to or ignore it. Usually it’s fairly benign but if you want to make an issue out of it you can do so with
which basically translates as “what the feck you lookin’ at?” This may give rise to a retort which you can deflect with
which translates as “what the feck you sayin’?” or “you talkin’ to me?” It can also be used when someone says something untoward in which case you use it as “what are you talking about?” With a single letter difference there is also
which means “what the feck are you doing?” Applications for this exclamation are numerous; use your imagination. When you’re pushed, when someone does something stupid, when someone throws a punch and you’re pretending it didn’t even hurt, etc.

As everyone knows a good retort or verbal attack is strengthened with a “git” or “twat” thrown in for good measure. Japanese is a little lacking in this area. There are some good words, though, but not that many. For example you can call someone
which literally means “foolish” albeit in an extremely negative way. So referring to someone as “baka” means you saying he’s an idiot, or referring to something you think is idiotic. All in all it sounds quite mild to my British sensibilities but rest assured that in Japan this is considered rude. To call someone an arsehole use the word
which sounds vaguely similar, so it’s easy to remember, but it does only mean “fool”.

According to colleagues the worst you can call someone is
or
for short.

The thing to remember though is that aggravation in Japan lies in the attitude rather than the words. Your stance, your tone of voice, the level of politeness your Japanese takes on, these all go towards your aggressive attitude a lot more than telling someone to “get the feck away”. Practice looking down with disdain, a soft but ever so slightly sneery voice, a stance which just speaks volumes on your attitude towards your target; with those mastered you could politely ask for a cup of tea and be assured a fight.

Happy hunting!