Blog #6: childish, but adult clothes

Hi, everyone! I'm Yu! I'm sorry to be toooooooo late for the deadline.

Today, I'd like to introduce you my favorite brand, FRAPBOIS(フラボア). I think that most of you have never heard this brand's name! But, have you ever seen a pink polka-dot windbreaker which I often wear? I believe that you all understand what I said!lol So, I bought it at FRABOIS.

This brand's concept is as I wrote on the subject, "Childish, but adult clothes." and there are many genderless clothes in this brand. Although girls and women are allowed to wear boyish clothes and look cute in these clothes, there are few men's clothing stores which keep feminine cloths and it is a little difficult for most of boys to enter girl's clothing stores and buy clothes . (I think Keiichi can do them!lol) However, we all men can buy such genderless clothes in this brand! Of cource, they are very cute!!!

In addition, this brand has many unique clothes. Look at this picture.

At first glance, this shirt seem to be normal, but when we see the enlarged one...

 

 

You noticed the little angel! Like this, this brand is thoroughly particular about the detail. That's why I'm really attracted by this brand!

Blog #9: Slang

Hey everyone, it’s Makiko. Sorry for the late post.

Summary of the lecture

Language is a living thing so that it is changing all the time. Slang, an informal language used by people in a particular group, is one form created through the changing. People use slang to share the emotions in an easy, funny and creative way. And people also use it to feel the sense of belonging to the group and identify themselves. 

 

Japanese Slangs

I’d like to give you 3 examples of Japanese slangs, ファボる, 女子会 and ぼっち飯.

ファボる

This is a term for Twitter. There is a system called “favorite” in Twitter. If you find your favorite tweet and want to see it even after it has lost in the long fast timeline, you can keep it in the box of “favorite” so that you can find the tweet easily from the “favorite” whenever you want to see it. ファボる(Fav-る) means to make a tweet “favorite.”

女子会 (Joshi-kai)

It is a women-only lunch/dinner/drink. In Joshi-kai, girls don’t have to care about guys and talk about everything that they actually feel and get free from stresses. Most Joshi-kais are held in some pretty fashionable restaurants or bars, not just normal Izakaya (居酒屋), to enjoy the woman-fullness! (<--- I've just made this word "woman-fullness! Could it be a slang?? Haha)

ぼっち飯（botchi-meshi）

It means having meal alone. This is a negative expression for those people who have meal alone and it implies that they are doing so because they don’t have any friends to have together.
It surely seems like having lunch alone is just a normal thing and it doesn’t worth to make special slang for it. But this slang has made. Why? I think because recent young Japanese people cannot act alone so that just “having meal alone” has become a special thing that worth to make a word for it.


My opinion of slang

I think there are two big reasons why people use slangs.

1.    There’s no particular word for it.
If you have to explain the situation without the slang, it’ll take a long time (just like I did upward.) ファボる is a very good example for this reason. Twitter is a new culture and there’s no particular word for it so we had to create it.
Slangs are made to fit the new culture or lifestyle.

2.    To identify ourselves.
This is also mentioned in the lecture, and I strongly think so, too. People want to feel the sense of belonging to the group (and sometimes to feel that they are different from others) and feel relieved that they are not alone. ぼっち飯 is a good example.

 

Too much use of slang sounds foolish so I don’t like it. But it is true that slang is very useful in many ways. I think people (especially, young people like us) should care about when and for whom to use.

Blog #9: Slang

This is Keiichi. I know the deadline was still over, but I'll do.

1. Summary of the Unit 1

 Slang is an informal language associated with particular group. Everyone use slang mainly because they want to share their emotions in hidden way, without understanding of people outside. The professor thinks it has both positive and negative dimensions because of its changeability, undesirability and so on.

2. Three Japanese slang words

・Pakuru (パクる)

"Pakuru" means to imitate some design, ideas or whatever other people created, or to stole something. From teenage people to around 40-year-old people at most use it. There are some reason of its origin, however a lot of people said that it came from a Germany word "packen" which means to grasp. 

・Kari-paku (借りパク)

As you can guess "Kari-paku" is the word mixed with "Pakuru" and "Kariru(借りる)". "Kariru" means to borrow. So "Kari-paku" means to stole something borrowed from someone. Like "Pakuru", people at most 40 year-old use it. 

・Moru (盛る)

"Moru" means that girls take a photogenic pic in printclub or by oneself, by putting on heavy make up or by taking it at an angle with a lot of light. Now this word is used for exaggerating something. Every teenage people and around 30 year-old people use it because it has been in fashion in about last 3 years.

3. The biggest reason these 3 words started to be used is their pronounceable. They all have just 2 to 4 sounds and this is good for young people to tell their feeling in shorten way. The 3 words are also in fashion because they sound fun and funny. I know this reason reason can be understood only by Japanese people, but certainly, they sound funny. 

Slang is so fun and so easy to use. However, I feel the more I use them, the more stupid I'll become. A lot of foreign people say Japanese has a lot of beautiful sounds but Japanese "slang" has nothing without funny. We should use our mother tongue correctly and should look at beautiful proper Japanese words again. 

See you in Friday! I miss our class!!!!!

Blog #9: Slang and Language Change

 Hi, I'm Yu! How was your life during school festival? Did you enjoy it?
Today, as I said in the title, I'll talk about Slang.
Firstly, I'll summarize the lecture.

 Language is living thing and we can't stop language from changing. Slang gives users a sense of belonging to the group. Slang is used by everyone now. When we use slang, we can shows we are part of culture, share social and emotional experiences, and it's fun, humorous and creative.

 Next, I'll list up three example of Japanese slang.

1. KY

 This is a little old word. It came into fashon in 2007 and was awarded 'word of the year', so it was prevailed by such a media as TV. This is an abbreviation of 'Kuuki ga Yomenai', in English 'he or she isn't sensitive to situations'.

2. gugu-ru(ググる)

 This means searching for something by using google. 'Gugu' is abbreviation of 'google' and 'ru' is a part of verb, so it is used for verb. For example, when someone asks a question on a BBS without searching it by himself, others say to him, "gugure."

3. oshi-men(推しメン)

 This means a menber who someone likes or supports  in a girl's idol group such as AKB48. It is the abbreviation of 'oshiteru member(推してるメンバー). 'Oshiteru' means 'support or like'.'For example, his oshi-men is Oshima Yuko. It is often used by people who like AKB48.

 I think slangs are often abbreviation of words. Therefore they have nice rings of them and it is fun for us to use them. That's why we are curious to use slangs.

Blog #9; Slang

Hi, I'm Sayuri. Today, I should do homework on this blog.......:(((((((


1. Summarizeation

  Language is living things. Slang is one of the examples and is usd in a particular group to identify them as one of the member of it. There are four benefit to use it; to become desirable, to show you are an expart in a certain situation, to share emosional experiences and just to enjoy. Some people don't like it but languages are always changing and fascineting people.

2. Japanese slangs
   ・Doyagao(どや顔)
　・Riaju(リア充)
　・Dhis-ru(ディスる)

 2-1Doyagao（どや顔）
　　　This means the face. You show the face when you success something. For example, it is said  that Mr. Kawashima, a goal keeper of Japanese football team show the face, when he stop a goal. And it is said that some comedians used this word in a TV program and it was spread widly then it got "an award of the word in fasion in 2011 ". So now it is used in a broad generation.

 

 

  2-2. Riaju(リア充)

　　　　This means a person who has good relationship in a real world, not online. At first, people who use 2channel(one of internet services) and are always use this site and they can't do well in a real life, made this word to because they envied a good relationship in a real world. Now it is used in a young generation mybe.

 

 2-3.  Dis-ru

         This means "insult" or "disrrispect". Japanese made this word English's "dis" and Jpanese "ru" which means verb. It was from Hip-Hop. It is used among young.

 

 

I think most of slangs in Japan is shorten words so the big reason  why  we use it is just to make easy to say.  If you envy someone who has cool boy friend and you say "I envy you. Why you have such a cool guy and why can't I get it!". It is normal. But "f**k riaju!" is easy to say, sorry the expression is terrible..... So we use shorten words, slangs in Jpan!

 

 

See you soon;)

 

Sayuri