So you want to spell things out in simple terms? To say it straight? To make things crystal clear? In Japanese, this is being hakkiri (はっきり) about it. There is no kanji for “hakkiri”; it is a native Japanese-ism that implies the literal truth.

Japanese society is full of white lies. This is not so different from the old saw of, when a woman asks you, “Does this dress make me look fat?” you answer “no,” regardless of whether it does or not! Speech itself can be full of hewing and hawing, with things like the “um” ‘s that Obama was known for during his candidacy and early presidency. Statements can be filled with all manner of fudging and imprecision.

“Hakkiri” is used in Japanese as an adverb, chiefly in the following way:

hakkiri iu (はっきり言う)

Here, “iu” is the root form of the verb to speak/ to state. At least, in the way we will see it, those readings work:

To state clearly.

To clearly state.

To plainly state.

To distinctly state.

If someone is fumbling a response to an awkward question, like, oh, do you like me and not that other girl, a response might read:

hakkiri itte kudasai! (はっきり言ってください！)

So, an urging – insistent but not overbearing – that the other party tell it to her straight, whether it’s what she wants to hear or not. This is a plea for seriousness, for honesty, and for bluntness.

Of course, actually replying clearly and plainly may not lead to the result the girl would prefer.

In one scene in a Japanese video game I was recently playing, a young female magic user rescued from low-level demons was in a conversation with the knightly main character (of that arc, at least). The question arose as to, if she was able to use magic, how did she get captured like that in the first place?

As the magic user tried hard to avoid the subject, the knightly character gently suggested that she must have been terrified of the demons and froze in place from fright.

To this, her response was:

h, hakkiri itte nai de kudasai!! (は、はっきり言ってないでください！)

As this is a bit problematic to try and read literally, let’s put it like this:

“D, don’t spell it out like that!”

That is, it’s bad enough that’s what actually happened, she just doesn’t want him to say it in such blunt, literal terms. This being no more than gentle teasing, it goes no further than that. She remained happily rescued and appreciative of the hero.

Now, the real trick follows:

hakkiri suru (はっきりする)

By adding the “suru” suffix, we make what precedes “suru” into an action verb. Normally, this is done for kanji compounds like for “benkyou” (勉強), which is normally read as “study,” turning it into “benkyou suru” for the verb “to study.” (There is a nuance to this that only language nerds would want to hear, but it is a common verb so it gets the point across.)

So, as I said at the start, “hakkiri” does not have a kanji (and never did).

Yet we can still turn it into a verb!

In this incarnation, it becomes the verb “hakkiri suru,” or, to make plain/ to make clear.

When applied to an intangible object, such as a person’s feelings, we can use the “saseru” suffix:

kimochi o hakkiri sasete (気持ちをはっきりさせて)

This is skipping ahead slightly but, this reads as the “soft imperative” form of make (your) feelings clear.

This can be to yourself or to others. If you are a male lead of an anime or manga story where you are in the middle of a love triangle, or square, or pentagon (and so on…), you may hear this phrase spoken (iu, いう、言う) to you.

As in, make up your mind. ^^

I hope I have successfully spelled out how Japanese people talk about spelling things out.

– J

Not Every Situation Is Formal

One of the real, visceral failings of standard Japanese courses is that they only teach the formal versions of verbs in the classroom. Granted, this is good for academic situations, the conduct of professional business, and interactions with public officials, and all students do need to learn formal versions. Nonetheless, students are tangibly harmed by the inability to use and understand plain and informal Japanese that is commonly employed in real life.

For our purposes, the classroom is not real life.

Anyone attempting to read manga to learn Japanese (and if you want raw material for this, just go to J-Comi; see previous post) absolutely will not succeed without a broad understanding of informal Japanese.

Furthermore, informal Japanese is necessary for full enjoyment of anime, film, and normal, everyday conversation with Japanese natives.

For businessmen, small talk is far more difficult to engage in without informal Japanese. Thus, a firm grounding in it is necessary.

The Really Basic Basics

基本の基本は (The basic basics) are like this:

行く　（いく） = iku, “To Go.” Root version/ plain, informal version.

行きます 　（いきます） = ikimasu, “To Go,” Formal version.

Let’s alter this slightly.

We’re going to use the volitional tense, which reads like “Let’s do X.”

学校に行こう。（がっこうにいこう。）= gakkou ni ikou. “Let’s go to school.”

This is the plain version.

学校に行きましょう。（がっこうにいきましょう。） = gakkou ni ikimashou. “Let’s go to school.”

This is the polite version.

The first version would be naturally spoken by young boys, but the second version would be naturally spoken by young girls.

This is such a basic, basic, fundamental comprehension issue that it is scarcely worth the time to even try to teach someone how to read manga if this is not covered.

It’s vital to understanding the feel and tone of Japanese dialog. If you have an interest in this, make it your business to learn the plain forms of Japanese verbs – starting with the most common ones that you will see. Besides, the plainest form is the root form, also known as the dictionary form. You do want to be able to look these up in a real dictionary at some point, don’t you?

– J

I decided to use something out of Naruto manga for educational purposes. I mean, why not? It may not be high literature, but it can be used to show little pieces of the Japanese language.

Audio Version

[audio:https://jp.learnoutlive.com/media/Naruto%20Yudan%20Taiteki.mp3]download mp3

Many Japanese e-mails, letters, and so forth, end with the above kanji, read as ijou. This is used in the same way as many Americans would use EOM, standing for End of Message, indicating that there is no more message to read.

In Japanese, it one “word,” but is actually more of an abbreviation. Let me explain.

To use a video game example, one “potential” (a.k.a. battle skill that triggers a certain % of the time under given conditions) in the game Valkyria Chronicles 1 (well, I say “1” because there’s a 2 and now a 3 about to come out) is written in Japanese as triggering when 3 以上 enemies are at fairly close range.

The maddening thing about this type of writing is that this can mean “3 and up” or “more than three.” The “i” part indicates comparison, the “or” part in “3 or more”, and the “jou” part indicates above, for the “more” part.

(Full disclosure: The first version of this post had me thinking that it needed to be “greater than 3,” but it isn’t necessarily so. This is one of those things where it’s great to have full context to be extra sure. While not the point of this article, I regret the slip. – J)

So with this in mind, why end a message with “more than”?

Well, it’s not the complete line, that’s why. It’s just a shortened version.

以上は無し

Take this version, ijou wa nashi. The “wa” is the usual topic particle, and this is the kanji-ized version of “nashi,” which a big, fat nothing. No, really, it signifies lack of existence.

Read like this, the message can be easily understood as saying, (the message) contains nothing further.

Or as we would put it in English, End of Message.

In a military context, this could be used verbally to end a spoken message. The Japanese is the same, but the English would change. In British and American military culture, the proper word would be the order, Dismissed.

Put differently, that will be all. There are many ways to put such a message, but the meaning – that the message has reached its end, and there is nothing further – is what must be understood, without needing to worry about the specific word involved.

Japanese people in business contexts simply expect everyone to know what 以上 (ijou) represents when used at the end of a message. Now you actually do know.

The Japanese word “pataan” (katakana: パターン) is 100% based on the English word pattern?

Not all Japanese people (日本人、nihonjin) know this. After all, they know the word as part of their language, a loan word, one of many. If that particular person hasn’t actually encountered the English word pattern in his or her studies, that person has no way to know that the two words are directly related.

I encountered this recently when helping a Japanese girl with her English over Skype. (This was for free, or 無料. (muryou, lit. no fee)) She didn’t actually know that the two were related… yet. That’s why it can really help to speak (話す、hanasu) with a native speaker.

Anyway, one way this is used is in the Japanese expression ワンパターン (“one pattern“). This relates to something that is cliche. No, seriously, it does; something cliche is something that follows a single pattern and therefore unfolds in a predictable manner.

勉強になりましたか？

And for English natives, did you understand that phrase? If not, and you’re interested, read below.

show

Line Six

何度も伝えたい        君はひとりじゃない

Translation

I want to tell you over and over              you’re not alone

Vocabulary & Grammar Notes

Nando mo

Japanese: なんども、何度も。 The first kanji is the “nan” as in “nani,” for “what?”. The “do” part is for degree, but is also used as a counter for “X number of times.” One time would be “ichido,” two would be “nido,” three would be “sando,” and so forth.

Here, “nando” is a kind of “how many times?” sort of question. Adding “mo” to the end… well, it turns this into a statement, not a question.

“Nani mo nai,” by the way, means “nothing at all.” (People will often cut the “nai” part but it is strongly implied.)

So, “nando mo” here means, not a fixed number of times, but any number of times, or rather, an undefined number of times over. As many times as it takes, in essence.

Tsutae

This comes from tsutaeru, To Tell/ To Convey. (Japanese: つたえる、伝える) In English, we can use “to tell” idiomatically, but at any rate, it’s all about conveying a message, whether it is through words or not.

Suffix: Tai

As a suffix, “tai” (Japanese: たい, never kanji) is a plain/ informal modifier indicating “I want to do X.”

Here, the speaker wants to convey (many times over/ over and over/ often) what follows in the second phrase.

Kimi

Covered previously, a “familiar” 2nd person pronoun. Not strangers, not darlings either (yet, at least).

Particle: Wa

Covered previously, the topic indicator. Japanese: は (that reads like “ha” on the character chart, but as a particle, is always spoken as “wa”).

Hitori

Long story short, this means, here, “by yourself/ alone.” Japanese: ひとり、ヒトリ、独り。The writer used hiragana, not kanji, to not make an important part seem remote. (Again, it’s being cute to some degree…)

Ja Nai

Let’s go over this in context.

Polite “is” affirmation: desu (です）

Plain “is” affirmation: da （だ）

Polite “is not” negative: de wa nai （でわない）

Plain “isn’t” negative: ja nai （じゃない）

So, since the subject is “kimi” (2nd person “you”), we change this to:

“You’re not alone.”

Stay Tuned For Next Time!