4 Japanese Phrases That Will Make You Hip (And Hated By Adults)
Learn Japanese, make friends. Friends are fun. Know what’s more fun? Enemies. You know when you deal with some teenagers and people in their early twenties and they have ways of talking that just completely piss you off? By the end of this post, that will be you.
4 phrases. That’s all it takes.
1. っぽい (looks like… seems like…)
Proper use:
Attached at the end of nouns.
Example: 彼はアメリカ人っぽい “He seems/looks like he’s American”
Hip use:
Attached to everything
東京に行けるっぽい: Looks/seems like I can go to Tokyo.
この本は高いっぽい : This book looks/seems expensive.
Ultra hip:
Make it a response to what someone just said and say it in rapid succession.
彼は幸せだと思わない?Don’t you think he is happy?
っぽいっぽい!Looks like it!
2. みたいな (like a… like…)
Proper use:
Goes in between 2 nouns to compare the second to the first.
豚みたいな人: A person like a pig.
Hip use:
Added to the end of any sentence (that ends in any way) to show that “It is like” what you are just saying.
俺はばかでいいんじゃないですか、みたいな。It’s like it’s okay that I’m an idiot, right?
3. 的には(-like, typical of, in the manner of)
Proper use:
Attached to the end of a noun.
平和: peace
平和的: peacefully
政治: politics
政治的: political
Hip use:
Add it to the end of an “I” pronoun to show this is your opinion and it is typical of your style.
俺的には嫌だね: For me and my style, I don’t like it.
4. まじ verb んですけど
Proper use:
None, ever.
Hip use:
Insert any verb to show you really and totally want to do something.
まじ食べたいんですけど: I totally want to eat
Ultra hip
Use the verb うける which is already a young way of saying something is funny
まじうけるんですけど: That’s like so totally funny.
Let’s put it all together
Here is a sentence that will make you so hated you may be banished from the country.
俺的にはさ、このおもしろいっぽい記事がまじうけるんですけど、みたいな
To me and my style, it’s like I’m totally laughing at this like interesting article.
Now smack forehead.
Do you know any other phrases like these? I’d love to see some more in the comments so everyone can be as hated as possible. Or maybe you want to show some examples with the above?!
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
According to my friends, I over use “like” when I talk, but I don’t even realize it.
Also turns out that I use みたいな a lot too, like, A LOT. I don’t even try to, it just comes out. I haven’t really used 的には in the non-correct way, but it’s slipped a while.
I guess I’m already half way to being a hipster.
俺的にゃ別にどうでもいいんだけどさぁ、お前らの意見なんて誰も聞きたくねーし、みたいな。
みたいな is such an easy bad habit to fall into. I know it slips out of me sometimes as well.
Sweet, time to troll some Youtube comments with 俺的にはさ、このおもしろいっぽいビデオがまじうけるんですけど、みたいな
What about saying やばい (like in the sense of cool, awesome) all the time?
Troll to your heart’s content.
Yup, repeated use of やばい will definitely earn you some enemies. Make sure to mix in やべぇ and やばっ. Also add a すげぇ before it for added hip emphasis.
I never knew when my Japanese teacher taught us 私的には that she was teaching us to be delinquents!! (‘o’)
She did tell us to only use it in casual situations. She’s the kind of professor who really cares about teaching us the proper way to say things, and in fact disagreed with Genki about ~たらどうですか? and preferred us to learn ~たらいかがですか? So I’m surprised.
I used it for quite a while until I learned other ways to express my opinions, and then it kind of faded. I think because I didn’t hear it being used much around me, I just sort of forgot about it.
Maybe she just got into bad habits.
If you want to be hated by your friends as well, you can’t forget 激おこぷんぷん丸.
For the extra curious, here’s the full chart, for those times when 激おこぷんぷん丸 is either too strong or not strong enough.
【弱め】おこ
【普通】まじおこ
【強め】激おこぷんぷん丸
【最上級】ムカ着火ファイヤー
【爆発】カム着火インフェルノォォォオオオウ
【神】激おこスティックファイナリアリティぷんぷんドリーム
Thanks, Nico Nico Pedia
Haha, love this.
And actually the next comic in the odd day in Japan series covers this.
Also, use やばい a bunch when you think something is cool.
Just say in quick succession, 「やばいやばいやばいやばいやばいやばい‼」
And if you want to be polite with やばい but still be hip, やばいっす or やべぇっす will give you that edge.