やる, やるな, and やるなぁ~

Of course, やる is the same as する, which means to do.
やるな means "don't do that," as placing a な after a verb in its plain form is a strong way to tell someone not to do whatever action the verb denotes.

やるなぁ~ means something along the lines of "good job," "well done," etc.
I just learned the third of these, sort of by accident.  I was watching a TV show called Hammer Session, and I heard one of the characters say it but didn't quite understand it.  The subtitles translated it as "Aren't you good?"  I couldn't understand why やる was used in that situation.  Something like 「やった！」 (I did it!) I could see, but やる?

Two days later, I was at my desk in the teachers' room at school, and I overheard one of my Japanese colleagues say 「やるなぁ~」.  My head perked up.  I asked her what exactly she meant just now, and she explained the differences between the three usages of this word.  I went back to the video that night to listen to it again.  It turns out I misheard the actress.  She doesn't say  「やるなぁ~」; she says 「やるじゃん!」。
I think it means the same thing, though.

There's no embedding code on the video, but if you want to see it the url is:
http://www.drama.net/m1/hammer-session-episode-4/part3
 As the link tells you, it's Episode 4, part 3, of Hammer Session.

skin oh so soft and silky smooth, skin to die for

Sube sube (スベスベ） hada （肌） is soft, smooth, silky skin.

sube sube (スベスベ） = soft and silky smooth
hada (肌） = skin

Of course, sube sube can be used to denote other nouns, not just skin.  I associate it with skin because when I first heard the word, somebody used it while describing skin.

Following are three videos.

The first shows women giving their skin the treatment they deem necessary for akachan hada （赤ちゃん肌, which you can see whenever the babies appear in the video）.  Akachan （赤ちゃん）, or baby, is used in much the way that English speakers might use the phrase "smooth as a baby's bottom."  (See definition on Cambridge dictionary site.)




The second video is of a young woman who topically uses yogurt to achieve sube sube-ness.




 And finally the Photoshop solution

うま味 (umami)

Umami is the Japanese term (and loan word) for what is considered here to be one of five basic tastes (along with sweet, sour, salty, and bitter).  Some of its translations are:  a "pleasant savory taste," "rounded, rich and savory.," and a "moreish savoury taste."

Dictionary.com's contribution, "a strong meaty taste imparted by glutamate and certain other amino acids: often considered to be one of the basic taste sensations along with sweet, sour, bitter, and salty," is the longest definition that I've come across.

A couple of videos on this topic:



 

Congestion or a Runny Nose

Recently got over a cold.  I had to get some congestion medicine and found that these words were useful. 

congestion / stuffy nose = 鼻づまり　(hanazumari)　
sniffles / runny nose =  鼻水　(hanamizu)

きもかわいい

A compounding of きもい and かわいい, this is quite a concept, I think.  Yes, there are things in this world that are a little gross-looking (きもい) and at the same time cute (かわいい).  I can't think of a single English word that encompasses this.

I first learned this word when I introduced the Grinch to one of my classes.

 　　　　　　　　　　

 

I think that Jack of The Nightmare Before Xmas would also qualify.

Below, a visual example someone else's conception of きもかわいい.

ほっておいて

ほっておいて = "Leave me alone" or "Get away from me," etc.
Can be quite a useful expression, I think.

This video, aptly named, demonstrates the sentiment through body language.




And it's also the name of a song, which I've just heard for the first time.

con man, swindler

sagishi, 詐欺師 = con man (or woman, although I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "con woman" in English)

My dictionary comes up with "swindler," a word I haven't heard in a while.  The last time I can remember was in elementary school when I read The Great Brain series, in which author/narrator John D. Fitzgerald depicts life during the late 1800s as spent with the genius who was his brother, and who also used his brains to swindle folks.  It sounds like the word was used often during that era.  

I came across さぎし in a tv show called Hammer Session, which is based on the manga about a Robin Hood-type con man who poses as a high school teacher and eventually changes the lives of the people he meets.  He calls himself a さぎし。

There was no code for embedding the video, so far as I could tell.  The url is
http://www.drama.net/m1/hammer-session-episode-1/part2

He says it at about 3:45 into the segment.  There are English subtitles.

If you want to see the first episode, here are the links:
Part 1  http://www.drama.net/m1/hammer-session-episode-1/part1
Part 2  http://www.drama.net/m1/hammer-session-episode-1/part2
Part 3  http://www.drama.net/m1/hammer-session-episode-1/part3

 I think it looks pretty interesting.  Sometimes kind of ださい in some places, but good-hearted and entertaining, from what I've seen.  I haven't seen all of it yet, though.

Couldn't find much of it on You Tube.  This one is soundless; because of the copyright laws, the audio track was disabled, but it'll give you a visual taste:

とりはだ

鳥肌 (とりはだ) = chicken skin, goosebumps

I like this one because it's easy to remember, since it works out as nearly a direct translation.  (鳥 means bird, really, but is often used to mean chicken, as in yakitori (焼き鳥).

There's a series entitled Torihada; I've never seen it.



There's also a comedian who goes by the name Torihada Minoru.  Form what I understand, he's set himself up as an extreme right-wing, imperialistic, militaristic character as a way to parody such real-life characters.   Below is a clip, as well as his website url.  I'm not trying to promote him; I actually don't watch Japanese comedians.  But I like the concept of his act, from what I hear of it.

http://www.torihada.com

おもろ

I first heard the term おもろ, I think, in 2009 or 2010.  My students explained it to mean 面白い人（おもしろいひと）, an interesting person.  I don't think it's listed in most dictionaries, but it Googles and You Tubes very well.

めちゃ

The Kansai version of ちょう (chou = very, or very very).  Casual, exclamatory, used often in everyday conversation (in my Tokyo surroundings, more commonly spoken among younger people than older ones).  Example:  めちゃうまいじゃん！　

めちゃ is an example of Kansai-ben, or Kansai dialect.  In large part due to the mainstream success of comedians from the Kansai region (esp. from Osaka), Kansai-ben has become quite popular throughout Japan (I've heard).  It's not everybody's cup of tea, though.  Some of my elderly students in Tokyo really aren't into it.  (But I don't mean to generalize about the views of senior citizens there; neither do I mean to generalize about people who don't like Kansai-ben.)

Below is a map of Kansai, which is characterized in Wikipedia as being located in the "southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū."  Most of the people I know in Japan seem to speak of Kansai as being the West part of Japan and Kantō (the region that encompasses Tokyo) as the East, but after looking at this map, I can't help noticing that neither is far west or far east.  Both regions have historically housed Japan's capital cities, and this might have something to do with people seeing them as being "the West" and "the East" of the nation; I'm only speculating, though.  I'll try asking some people when I go back after summer vacation.


                                

I didn't know until just now that the terms Kansai and Kinki, two geographical designations, are used interchangeably in modern contexts.  (Kinki is simply an area's name and has nothing to do with the English word kinky.  It took me some time to find this out.  A music duo called Kinki Kids was popular when I arrived to the country, and I misconceived the meaning of their name for slightly over a year.)

 Anyway,  めちゃwas the first bit of Kansai-ben that I learned.  I like it and feel that it's a fun word to say.

followup: variations on マッチョ

The first time I ever heard the Japanese usage of macho was from a friend, Yocchi--a nice guy from Hokkaido.  He was very much into boxing and K-1, and weightlifting.  He had a great self-deprecating way about him, and whenever his girlfriend complimented his level of fitness, he would shake his head and say, "No, no!  My target is soft macho!"

At first, I really didn't know what to make of that statement.  I gave some thought as to how I might go about deciphering it.  I gave pause not just to the term "soft macho," which I was hearing for the first time, and which immediately made me think of "soft tacos"; it was also Yocchi's use of the word target.  After running several possible interpretations through my head, I asked him, "What---What is, soft macho?"

     "ソフトマッチョ?" said he.
     "I never thought of macho as being soft."
     "It is like Brad Pitt."
     "What?"

Apparently, at least in Yocchi's eyes, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, probably guys like Matt Damon, Will Smith, or any number of Hollywood actors who work out and have established a certain physique, but are still kind of everyday dudes, are      ソフトマッチョ.  Guys like the Rock or Vin Diesel are outright macho (which means "big and muscular,"in Japanese-English), and there's no qualifying this trait, in their cases.  But B.Pitt, T.Cruise, etc. are less macho, and therefore soft macho.  That this category of macho was Yocchi's target simply meant that he aspired to be or to look like that.  (His girlfriend would have said he was already there, but Yocchi is, as I said, self-deprecating--and humble.)

 Not long after that conversation, I learned another category of macho:  
ガリマッチョ

ガリガリ (gari gari) means skinny--one dictionary defined it as "skin and bones."  As with soft and macho,  gari and macho (in the realm of Japanese-English) seem to be somewhat contradictory, but at the same time make perfect sense to me, as soft and gari are being used to mitigate the macho-ness.  So ガリマッチョ would just be a skinny/slim person with some muscle definition.

Shortly after learning ガリマッチョ, I was told by some students that the better term is 細マッチョ(ホソマッチョ, hosomacho).  Hosoi is another way to say thin.  They didn't explain why it was better; maybe it's just their preference of words.

Google or YouTube any of these macho expressions, and an abundance of visual explanations should turn up.