osoroi (お揃い,おそろい)

Osoroi (お揃い, おそろい) is the adjective form of sorou (そろう), a verb whose definitions range from "be complete" to "be equal; be the same."  Osoroi can simply be defined as "matching."

If two or more people are wearing matching shirts, their online photo might be captioned with "osoroi no fuku" (おそろいのふく) or "osoroi no shatsu" (おそろいのシャツ) to denote the matching clothes.

The friend who taught me this word likes to mix Japanese and English; her Facebook post read "We are おそろい today" and was punctuated with a purikura of her and her friend wearing matching outfits.  She also said that girls would be more likely to use the abbreviated form.  In her words, "All Japanese gals want to have おそろ things among friends or with their boyfriend."  Perhaps not surprisingly, search results show more おそろい/おそろ posts by females and couples; it seems less widespread for guys to post pictures of themselves wearing matching outfits and/or accessories. 

If you Google 「おそろいの友達」 (osoroi no tomodachi), the pictures that come up in the Images section will probably include a lot of friends wearing matching shirts, jackets, Mickey/Minnie Mouse head wear, etc.  

Below are some examples, both commerce and blog sites.

http://www.wegoblog.jp/webstore/122591
http://tdrhack.com/hacks/girls-disney/
http://ameblo.jp/earl-juntarou/entry-11654583180.html
http://ameblo.jp/hitomi-endo0614/image-11718193212-12771004742.html
http://aizawaemiri.com/?p=13831

And this clip is from Waratte Iitomo! (笑っていいとも!).  You'll see the matching おそろいuniforms.  The model Rora (ロラ) who appears in this is insanely popular with my teenage and 20-something students, especially the female ones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIJ-E4PMdc4

seishun (literally, "blue spring"), 青春

Today was our last day of school before summer break, and everyone was in fine spirits, anticipating what the coming month would bring.  I had an iced tea in my hand as I walked to the teacher staff room and the halls were chaotic.  Most students in our school are in clubs, and there are committees as well--the Culture Festival Committee, the Summer Camp Committee, the Student Council. . .They were manically running to and fro, and making me tired.  I wanted a moment's peace so I went out of the building and sat on the stone wall in front of our main entrance.

As I sat there people started to exit, their meetings finished.  Some of the seniors saw me with my iced tea and came over to say see you after the break.  They were talking a lot to each other, so hyped up as they were.  One of them said "Seishun!"  I didn't know why.  "Seishun!  How do I say 'seishun' in English?"

If it's the seishun that I'm thinking of, then adolescence would be the definition I learned some years ago.  I said, "Adolescence?" and no one reacted much.  "Do you mean like, your teen years?"

And then there was reaction.  They understood what I meant.  One of the girls told me that seishun can be one's teen years, but not necessarily so.  They went on to explain the kanji to me, which literally translates to "blue spring," aoi (青い) and haru (春)."  When I heard that, I thought they meant blue as in depressed, as in wedding blues, which is a common phrase in Japan (denoting the anxiety and regret that some newly married people feel after the ceremony).  But no, that wasn't what they meant.  They said that seishun
can be any time in your life that could be one of the best times in your life.

When I got home I Googled it and, along with the youth and adolescence definitions I also came across "the springtime of one's life."  I supposed that springtime is, naturally, the time of adolescence for many people, which is likely why those definitions come up so ubiquitously.  But I also appreciated that a group of teenagers today were reflective enough to say that, no, the springtime of a person's life can happen at any time.  

"Seishun" (also romanized as "Seisyun") was a 2007 single by the group Tokio.

netabare (ネタバレ)

netabare (ネタバレ) = spoiler

I saw Maleficent a couple of days ago; it came out in Japan a bit after much of the rest of the world.  There was a tremendous amount of anticipation for it here, as Disney is quite popular in these parts.  Most of my students can hardly wait to see it, and as its release here coincided with final exam week for many of them, most haven't seen it.

So after exams week, we resumed classes and I mentioned that I'd seen the movie.  They taught me the term netabare (ネタバレ), which I eventually understood to mean spoiler.  None of my students knew the word spoiler; it was simply the way they cried out "Netabare! Netabare!", with their hands held out to shield them, that I understood that they didn't want me to tell them about the story.  They then confirmed this intended meaning by saying to me, "Please don't tell me what happens!"

I liked how Angelina Jolie fit the part.  She uses her eyes so effectively.  Whenever she screamed out her curses and anti-curses in dramatic fashion I felt that things got a bit awkward, but on the whole I couldn't imagine another actress filling this part the way she did.  I don't think it a spoiler to say that I say that I liked the way Maleficent seemed always determined to be truthful with Aurora, even in situations in which it wasn't easy  to be so.

Sometimes students write about Walt Disney and how he's impacted the world as a first-rate imaginary and business visionary.  So far, they haven't brought up any charges of Hollywood blacklists and anti-Semitism, so I haven't had to deal with those sticky subjects. I won't avoid them, but at the same time I'm not rushed to bring them to the forefront.
The trailer in Japan. . .

and a press conference

ダメよ～ダメダメ (dame yo! dame dame~)

This one is trending right now, I was told today.  The language itself isn't anything special; it's just a way of saying "That's no good" or "You can't do that," things of the like.  My friends tell me that what stands out about this clip is the tone and pitch of the speaker.

 
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Update (July 10, 2015)
Unfortunately, You Tube took off the above video, I imagine for copyright reasons.  But people have been filling in the void with other clips.  Below are a duo who use the original audio recording and mime along with it:




I was surprised to find a bunch of SNSD videos dedicated to this phrase. Their Japanese has gotten so good. . .I'm jealous.


aa

今でしょ！Ima desho!!

This was a popular phrase from last year. (But I think that its message is pretty much timeless.)


My friends tell me that I should say it without the final -u (ーう) that you usually see in deshou.  It gives it a more abrupt stop and sense of, I don't know, urgency maybe.

今でしょ！(Ima desho!!) = The time is now!  Now's the time!

And another interpretation is "Right now."  I liked these little clips.  Homemade imitations of commercials. 




And this one was pretty funny.  I don't know why so many of these "Ima desho" videos have kids in them.
"When you gonna study?"  
"We're studying now, man!"




 The "right now" translations reminded me of this Van Hagar classic.  Amazingly, it's now over twenty years old.   I really like a lot of the Van Halen catalogue, but this one was one of my least favorite of their singles.  I'm listening to it now to see if I have a different reaction than I did back then, since that sort of thing can happen.

Love Is an Open Door (Japanese version)

As is the case in many corners of the internet, lip-syncing Frozen songs has become a widespread meme in Japan.  This is my favorite one.

I hope the kanji, romaji, and English lyrics are arranged in an easy-enough-to-read way. I've tried to arrange them by verse and chorus.  

A lot of the lyrics aren't direct translations, I should mention.  For example, the "Oshiete yo" at the beginning of verse 2 doesn't translate to Han's line "I mean it's crazy. . ."  I think that in general, when movie themes are redone in Japanese, the gist of the lyrics' meaning is kept intact, with some or much artistic license taken.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=umDteq-g7XE

Lyrics in kanji / kana and below that, romaji
(from http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/frozen/articles/231661/title/love-open-door-japanese-lyrics-kanji-romaji-english-translation):


ねえ、ちょっとおかしなこと言ってもいい？
そういうの大好きだ！
nee, chotto okashi na koto ittemo ii?
souiu no daisuki da!  
[Anna:] Okay, can I just, say something crazy?  
[Hans:] I love crazy!
 
どこにも出口のない日々が
突然に変わりそう
変わる（君と出会えて）すべてが
初めてのときめきだわ（初めてのときめきだよ）
僕も同じこと考えてた！だって
どこにも居場所のない日々で
探し続けていたこんな人を
dokonimo deguchi no nai hibi ga
totsuzen ni kawarisou
boku mo onaji koto kangaeteta! datte,
dokonimo ibasho no nai hibi de
sagashi tsudzuketeita konna hito wo
kawaru (kimi to deaete) subete ga
hajimete no tokimeki da wa (hajimete no tokimeki da yo) 
[Anna:] All my life has been a series of doors in my face
And then suddenly I bump into you [Hans:]  I was thinking the same thing! 'Cause like
I've been searching my whole life to find my own place
And maybe it's the party talking or the chocolate fondue [Anna:] [giggles] [Anna:] But with you... [Hans:] But with you [Hans:] I found my place... [Anna:] I see your face... [Both:] And it's nothing like I've ever known before!


二人だから
とびら開けて
飛び出せるよ
今（今）もう（もう）
二人だから
futari dakara
tobira akete
tobidaseru yo
ima (ima) mou (mou)
futari dakara 
Love is an open door!
Love is an open door!
Love is an open door! [Anna:] With you! [Hans:] With you! [Anna:] With you! [Hans:] With you! [Both:] Love is an open door...


教えてよ
え？
なにが好きか？
サンドイッチ
僕と同じじゃないか
私たちはよく似てるね
あ！またそろった！
考えてること
感じていること
そう（本当）に
似てるね
oshiete te yo
e?
nani ga suki ka?
sandoicchi
boku to onaji janai ka!
watashitachi ha yoku niteru ne
a! mata sorotta!
kangaeteru koto
kanjiteiru koto
sou (hontou) ni
niteru ne  
[Hans:] I mean it's crazy...  
[Anna:] What?  
[Hans:] We finish each other's-  
[Anna:] Sandwiches!  
[Hans:] That's what I was gonna say! 
 [Anna:] I've never met someone-  
[Both:]Who thinks so much like me!
Jinx! Jinx again!
Our mental synchronization
Can have but one explanation  
[Hans:] You-  
[Anna:] And I-  
[Hans:] Were-  
[Anna:] Just- 
 [Both:] Meant to be!


ひとり（ひとり）寂しい日々に
もうお別れしよう
hitori (hitori) sabishii hibi ni
mou owakareshiyou
[Anna:] Say goodbye... [Hans:] Say goodbye... [Both:] To the pain of the past
We don't have to feel it anymore!


二人だから
とびら開けて
飛び出せるよ
今（今）もう（もう）
二人だから
futari dakara
tobira akete
tobidaseru yo
ima (ima) mou (mou)
futari dakara 
Love is an open door!
Love is an open door!
Love is an open door!
[Anna:] With you! [Hans:] With you! [Anna:] With you! [Hans:] With you! [Both:] Love is an open door...

If you'd like to hear the original English version, this is one of many links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6nnoWgbdvg

-------------------------------------------------------------------
It's one week later, and this video's gotten some serious views. . .
Someone wrote a short article about it.

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/06/04/schoolgirls-frozen-lip-sync-is-hilarious-terrifying/

follow up on pinchi (ピンチ)

Just a follow up on　ピンチ--

As was noted in the entry for yabai, ピンチだ！ can be used for "I'm in a pinch" / "I'm in trouble."  Additionally there's 
ピンチに立つ　( ピンチにたつ )

ピンチ is also the word for clothespin.


And of course, ピンチヒッター is pinch hitter.  For the movie The Sitter, when they renamed it for the Japanese market, they did a play on words, Pinch Sitter ( ピンチシッター ).

        

from "I'm in trouble" to "Oh, this is so good!!"...やばい!!!

Yabai (やばい) has been evolving over the past decade.  Formerly, it was an exclamation of distress, along the lines of "Oh, no," "I'm in trouble," "I'm f*cked."  A short while ago, I was sitting next to one of my fellow teachers when realized that she didn't have enough classes before exam week to finish teaching all of the content she needed to cover for the tests.  She cried out, "Pinchi (ピンチ)だ!", short for "I'm in a pinch"--which, of course, who really says that?  I wanted to make sure I understood exactly what she was saying, so I asked her, "Do you mean it like, 'I'm in a pinch?'" and she said yes; she's quite tolerant of  my language questions, and always helpful, God bless her.  She went on to say that younger people would probably say やばい instead.

While the original meaning of yabai still stands, it seems to be used just as often now to denote very positive feelings about something or someone.  The first time I heard it used in this way was at a summer camp.  As we walked back from the campfire to the hotel (but yes, we still call it a camp), an infinite multitude of stars shone above us, and students screamed out to the sky "Yabai kirei!"  Later that year, I recall hearing it at a concert.  Velvet Revolver was performing (co-headlining a show with Marilyn Manson, which looking back is a pretty amazing occurrence) and some girls next to me, drooling over a topless Scott Weiland, kept saying "Yabai!  Yabai kakko ii!" throughout the show.

Really, though, I think it feels quite similar to an "OMG" in English.  Or how, when experiencing or witnessing something overwhelmingly good, we might comment that we're done for.  Or we might say we're in trouble when we find someone attractive to an extreme degree.  There's something viscerally expressive in this word.

Honestly, I'm not trying to promote this music, but here are a couple of examples of yabai's usage.  The first is a song entitled "Yabai," performed by the boy-group Arashi.  The guy pictured in the video is Jun Matsumoto, perhaps most well-known for his portrayal of Tsukasa Domyouji in Hana Yori Dango.


                           

and this is a Morning Musume video.  The caption under the video,

かっこよすぎてヤバい!

is another usage, stating that something is too cool.  To tell the truth, I was surprised at the heaviness of the guitars at the start of this clip.  It wasn't what I expected from Morning Musume. 


      





 In the caption under this one, you can see another way to use the word.

. . .キレイ過ぎてヤバいｗｗｗ 

by which the writer means that the actress, Kyoko Fukada, is just too pretty (!).

 

No new information in this video, but I liked it because she's going through the time and effort of posting herself dancing on You Tube, at the same time wearing a mask.  I had to smile at that.

.

            

suru (する) verbs, part 5

bunkatsu suru, 分割 (ぶんかつ) する--to divide, split

I thought this was a pretty cool example.  I'd never seen them separate the train cars before.  The splitting up starts at about 2 minutes into the video.




In the video below, someone is showing us how to split a PDF file.

I just think it's nice that people go through the trouble of videoing and posting stuff like this, which I'm sure is helpful to some.
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bunseki suru, 分析 (ぶんせき) する--to analyze, break down



 

To tell the truth, I have no idea what he's talking about--I watched for about 20 seconds and moved on.  But even without comprehending his presentation,  I thought that the visual alone might help in remembering this word.

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  chikoku suru, 遅刻 (ちこく)　する--to be late, tardy


This one just made me laugh. Gorilla Man is definitely running behind schedule. . .

"Baigaeshi!"

This was from last year's TV show, Hanzawa Naoki, the story of a good man trying to survive a corrupt banking world.  I only got around to watching it this year when it reached the internet with English subtitles.  I liked it quite a lot.

The series protagonist is not to be messed with.  His warning to people, his philosophy in business and in life, is embodied in the line "Yararetara yarikaesu. . .Baigaeshi da!"  (やられたらやり返す 倍返しだ!)　　Yararetara is in the passive voice, so some of my friends' and students' attempts at direct translation come out something like "If it is done to you, do it back--double payback!"  A slightly less direct  translation would be "If someone screws you, give double the payback." Or if you want to go higher than double--Hanzawa Naoki goes up to jyuu at some point--then something like "If someone screws you, screw 'em back ten-fold.")

-bai (倍) is the suffix for times, as in nibai (二倍, 2 times), sanbai (三倍, 3 times), etc.    If you just say baigaeshi, it's apparently presumed to mean double the payback.  If you want to go higher, then you have to put a number, e.g. san (三), go (五), jyuu (十), etc. before the baigaeshi.

At the end of this video Naoki H. delivers the line:



This is a trailer.




 And this is a website where you can watch it with English subtitles.  To be honest, I don't think that the translators are native English speakers, but I'm not complaining--they did a good enough job that I could easily keep up with the story.

http://www.drama.net/hanzawa-naoki-episode-1

よろびこ (yorobiko)

I don't think this is officially a word yet, and it may never be. . .I recently learned it from one of my high school students.  よろびこ (yorobiko) is a mutation of よろしく (yoroshiku) よろしくおねがいします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu).  It's one of those words that, right now, maybe only high school students would know.

When I mentioned this to other adults, they recalled that around ten years ago, よろぴく (yoropiku) was the word of the day.  Just a cute alteration of the very-important yoroshiku, I guess.  These adults tell me that yoropiku is "so old."

One of my fellow colleagues at school, when she heard me asking about yorobiko, looked on with some disdain.  I think it's an understatement to say that not everyone here likes the morphing of words and phrases that the younger generation is into.  Personally, though, I find it a bit impressive for its creativity.  As with many things in Japanese culture, the creativity manifests in doing new things with old things.

A couple of links of people using it on their blogs.  (I wanted to check around to make sure that it wasn't only my student using this expression. . .)

http://ameblo.jp/1818abc-0822/entry-11374083579.html

http://now.ameba.jp/gaobaba/1478576234/