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4 Ways To Use Baka (ばか) Like A Pro — 18 Comments

  1. 「お前馬鹿なのか」could be added to the list. Also, I love it when the usual construction is flipped, as in [ばああああか、おまえは」. I’m pretty sure I learned that for the first time watching Trick, but I’ve heard it many times elsewhere too.

    • Trick definitely has its large share of ばか usage.

      And the flipped construction is always great, because it leaves it till the last second to decide what the sentence is about. Always keeps you on your toes.

  2. Usually just use the 馬鹿じゃない?
    Or when I am talking to my wife and sister in law and they are being really slow, I just say 早く馬鹿達!

    • Really it’s mostly on TV between entertainers,. In real life, it’s not that common.

      What you do occasionally see is the pretend action of about to slap, but not actually making contact with the person’s head. I’ve had this happen with a close friend. It really is only between good male friends, and contact in real life really is rarely made.

      However, this was my experience in Tokyo/Chiba/Kanagawa. In Osaka, which is where this type of comedic activity stems, it may actually be a lot more common. Maybe someone who has spent a good length of time there can chime in here?

  3. Haha the combination mix and match one made me laugh, very creative use of 馬鹿!I usually just go for the plain 「ばか!」 myself, though.

    • Hi,

      Only the word 馬鹿 ever appears written in kanji in this article and you can find both its kana and romaji forms in the first sentence.

      The article also uses some kana forms, though even those are mostly just the word 馬鹿 as well (or phonetic deformations such as ばああああああか(Baaaaaaaaka)), with the exceptions being the use of the は and の particles.

      And on a general note, you really would be much better off relying on kana (which take only a relatively small amount of work to learn) rather than romaji, since you’d then at least have some access to genuine Japanese material.

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