distinct chunks, different languages tend to divide up this space in different ways. To take liquid H2O as an example, the English word “water” occupies a meaning space that in Japanese is divided in two, depending on the temperature of the water, as expressed by the distinct words mizu “cold water” and yu “hot water.” It is therefore an oxymoron in Japanese to say *atsui mizu “hot mizu.” Similarly, Japanese has two verbs covering the meaning space of English help, one (tetsudau) referring to help given by doing the same thing as the person helped, the other (tasukeru) referring to help given by doing something different from the person helped. Helping someone wash dishes, for example, would be expressed by tetsudau, but helping a person in financial distress by lending him money would call for tasukeru. This explains why, if you were drowning, you would want to cry out Tasukete-kure! rather than Tetsudatte-kure! as the latter would, if taken literally, lead to fatal results.
A second reason that vocabulary poses a particular challenge to the second-language learner is that vocabulary and grammar are not as easily distinguished as commonly thought. Many important words, such as verbs and other predicates, in fact carry grammar with them. Part of understanding the meaning of a verb in Japanese is to know how many and what kinds of nouns go with the verb for it to make sense, and what the particles are that express the role played by each noun. So to understand the meaning of taberu “eat,” you need to know that it takes two nouns, one expressing the person or thing that eats (marked by the particle ga, often replaced by wa) and another expressing the thing eaten (marked by the particle o), as in Kyaku ga soba o taberu “the customer eats soba.” Every verb or predicate carries with it a grammar like this—although that grammar is often covertly present rather than overtly expressed, and it may or may not behave as one might expect from its English counterpart. The verb au “meet,” for example, takes an “object” marked by the particle ni, not the normal object marker o as one would predict from the fact that “meet” takes an object in English (e.g., tomodachi ni au “meet a friend”). And there are times when a given verb in one language corresponds to two different verbs in the other, as with verbs like English “open” that have two distinct counterparts in Japanese, each with their own separate grammar (aku and akeru in the case of “open”).
For reasons such as these, numerous pitfalls lie along the seemingly straight path to acquiring Japanese vocabulary at the beginning and intermediate levels, and it is just such pitfalls that this volume is designed to help learners avoid. In it Akira Miura distills the wisdom of a distinguished career of thirty-five years teaching Japanese in American universities to target more than five hundred words and expressions that are most likely to give beginning and intermediate learners difficulty, whether or not they may be aware of it, as they venture out of the classroom into the real world of Japanese. In the process he brings to bear not only his formidable classroom teaching experience but also his skill as a linguist and his trademark love of humor in language that has so endeared him to his colleagues in the Japanese teaching profession. Both teachers and students of the Japanese language will find here explanations that are clear, accessible, hands-on, and oriented to actual situations of daily life that are most likely to be encountered by beginning and intermediate students. Interspersed among the language explanations are numerous points of commentary on Japanese culture that make this volume equally suited to being read for pleasure as to being used as a reference tool. Though it may not guarantee that you will never encounter a situation like that of our American friend who described himself as a carrot, this volume will bring a heightened awareness of the pitfalls in using Japanese vocabulary that will greatly decrease the likelihood of you finding yourself in such a situation. At the same time it is certain to add colloquial spice to your expressive power in Japanese, and, last but not least, to add hours of enjoyment to your study of the language.
WESLEY M. JACOBSEN
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Preface
I taught Japanese to Americans for more than thirty-five years. During that time I observed a large number of errors in Japanese made by my American students. Most of those errors were due to the students’ insufficient mastery of Japanese grammar (for example, their inability to inflect verbs correctly or to use appropriate particles), but there were also at least as many errors that are basically attributable to vocabulary problems.
When the American student of Japanese first comes across a new Japanese word, it is usually introduced with an English translation, which is considered the “equivalent,” e.g., atatakai 暖かい is matched up with “warm.” The student is therefore very likely to conclude that there is in fact a one-to-one correspondence between the two words, and he or she does indeed start using atatakai, for example, in all situations where “warm” would be called for in English. The student might thus say to a Japanese friend in the middle of summer, with the mercury hitting the mid-eighties, Kyō wa atatakai desu nē 今日は暖かいですねえ “It’s warm today, isn’t it!” That would really baffle the poor Japanese friend because, in Japanese, temperatures that high are not atatakai but atsui 暑い “hot.” Atatakai most aptly describes a nice spring day that arrives after the cold months of winter.
Essential Japanese Vocabulary combines the two volumes of my Japanese Words & Their Uses, which were originally published separately. It is designed to provide help for American students, especially those at the elementary and intermediate levels, by explaining approximately five hundred Japanese words and phrases and their usages. It explains not only how they are used but also how they should not be used. Whenever possible, I’ve contrasted Japanese terms with their English counterparts. Many of the errors cited in this volume were actually committed by my own students (although they are not always quoted verbatim).
There are just as many synonyms in Japanese as there are in English, and they also may create problems for students of Japanese. For example, both binbō 貧乏 and mazushii 貧しい mean “poor,” but they differ in usage. In this book, I have included a number of synonyms like that, with sample sentences as well as explanations of their differences.
If American and other English-speaking students of Japanese can find solutions to some of their problems in mastering basic vocabulary with the aid of this book, I will be more than happy. It is also my hope that teachers of Japanese working with English-speaking students may find the explanations and examples helpful for their own classes. I would like to express my appreciation to the Australian National University, which awarded me a research grant that enabled me to continue writing the manuscript. Thanks are also due to my wife, Charlotte, who proofread the final draft for me.
AKIRA MIURA
Explanatory Notes
ARRANGEMENT OF ENTRIES
The main text of this book consists of a list of more than 500 Japanese terms. Each entry heading gives the term in romanization and in Japanese kanji (ideographic characters) and/ or kana (syllabics), then one or more English “equivalents.” The kanji are limited to those widely in use. The heading is then followed by a detailed explanation of the term’s usage.
TERMINOLOGY
Since this book is meant not as a scholarly treatise but rather as a reference book for elementary- through intermediate-level students, the number of technical terms has been kept to a minimum.
I -Adjectives. These adjectives are inflected words that end in -ai, -ii, -ui, or -oi. Hayai 速い “fast,” ōkii 大きい “large,” furui 古い “old,” and hiroi 広い “wide,” for example, are i-adjectives. The -ku form of an adjective (e.g., hayaku) is referred to as the adverbial form.
Na-Adjectives. Na-adjectives are so called because when they are used to modify a noun, they require na な, as in kirei na hana きれいな花 “a beautiful flower” or iya na hito
