Archive for March, 2021
Be careful not to be ディスられる by trying to be hip Posted by eriko1 on Mar 24, 2021
In the last blog (Flattening Accents), I wrote about the trend of flattening accents. I am going to list more language trends (トレンドtorendo) among Japanese young people in this blog. Combine English words+ suffix ru バズる （buzz + ru) = to go viral ディスるor disる (disrespect + ru) = to disrespect ググる (google + ru) = to…
Flattening Accents Posted by eriko1 on Mar 15, 2021
I have been always interested in teenage vernacular (特有の言葉 tokuyu no kotoba). My senior thesis was on the teenage vernacular in Southern California. Teenagers are experts (専門家senmonka) in creating new words as they are not bound by rules. They are creative in any language. Some new words are born and die, while others gain status…
Japan’s Unchanging Gender Gap Posted by eriko1 on Mar 5, 2021
March is Women’s History Month (女性史月間 joseishi gekkan). The equality issue was widely discussed when Yoshiro Mori, the former Chair of the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, made discriminatory (差別的 sabetsuteki) remarks about women (see my blog “How Not to Apologize – Mori of Tokyo Olympics.) Every newspaper and every TV news talked how outdated (時代遅れ jidaiokure) our society was. …