{"id":80,"date":"2006-01-12T14:27:02","date_gmt":"2006-01-12T05:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nihongo.3yen.com\/2006-01-12\/when-its-not-quite-as-good-as\/"},"modified":"2006-01-12T14:27:02","modified_gmt":"2006-01-12T05:27:02","slug":"when-its-not-quite-as-good-as","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/2006\/01\/12\/when-its-not-quite-as-good-as\/","title":{"rendered":"When it’s not quite good enough to be \u300c\u307e\u3042\u307e\u3042\u300d"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this short post, I\u2019ll be talking about \u300c\u5fae\u5999\u300d<\/span>\uff08\u3073\u307f\u3087\u3046\uff09, a na-adjective<\/a> that is used quite often in Japanese. The word \u300c\u5fae\u5999\u300d itself describes a state of delicate balance and indicates that things can easily go one way or the other.<\/p>\n

You can find many examples from the WWWJDIC of this usage<\/a> such as the following sentence.<\/p>\n

\u305d\u306e\u8a00\u8449\u306b\u306f\u5fae\u5999<\/u>\u306a\u30cb\u30e5\u30a2\u30f3\u30b9\u304c\u3042\u308b\u3002
\n-The word has a delicate<\/u> shade of difference in meaning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While the word when used in this fashion is not slang, there is one more way to use \u300c\u5fae\u5999\u300d that can be considered slang: a negative version of \u300c\u307e\u3042\u307e\u3042\u300d.<\/p>\n

Many of you probably have already learned \u300c\u307e\u3042\u307e\u3042\u300d in the classroom as a way of describing something as \u201cso-so”. However, while \u300c\u307e\u3042\u307e\u3042\u300d means neither good nor bad, it has a favorable connotation. \u300c\u5fae\u5999\u300d on the other hand, while also used to describe something that is neither good nor bad, looks at things in a negative light. To illustrate, let\u2019s look at the two different responses to the following question.<\/p>\n

Q: \u5473\u306f\u3069\u3046\uff1f – How is the taste?<\/p>\n

A1: \u307e\u3042\u307e\u3042\u3002- It\u2019s not bad.
\nA2: \u5fae\u5999\u30fb\u30fb\u30fb\u3002- Umm\u2026 it\u2019s not that good.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first answer is saying, while the taste is not great<\/i> necessarily, it not that bad. The second answer takes the opposite stance and indicates that while the taste is not terrible<\/i>, it\u2019s just not very good. It\u2019s similar to the \u201ccup is half-empty\/half-full\u201d distinction. While both mean the same thing, the attitude is completely opposite from each other.<\/p>\n

Here are some interesting examples of \u300c\u5fae\u5999\u300d that I came up with. Be careful not to insult anybody using this word (unless that\u2019s your intent)! That\u2019s probably why they only teach you \u300c\u307e\u3042\u307e\u3042\u300d in class.<\/p>\n

1\uff1a \u3042\u306e\u5b50\u306f\u3001\u304b\u308f\u3044\u304f\u306a\u3044\uff1f – Don\u2019t you think that girl is cute?
\n2: \u3046\uff5e\u3093\u3001\u5fae\u5999\u3060\u306a\u3002 – Hmm, nah, not really.<\/p>\n

1: \u660e\u65e5\u3001\u6642\u9593\u7a7a\u3044\u3066\u3044\u308b\uff1f – Do you have time open tomorrow?
\n2: \u660e\u65e5\u306f\u3001\u3061\u3087\u3063\u3068\u5fae\u5999\u304b\u3082\u3002 – Tomorrow might be a bit shady.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As you can see from the second example, like most slang, you can use \u300c\u5fae\u5999\u300d in all sorts of situations. Try it on your Japanese friends today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this short post, I\u2019ll be talking about \u300c\u5fae\u5999\u300d\uff08\u3073\u307f\u3087\u3046\uff09, a na-adjective that is used quite often in Japanese. The word \u300c\u5fae\u5999\u300d itself describes a state of delicate balance and indicates that things can easily go one way or the other. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colloquialism","category-intermediate","category-vocabulary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}