ふうが

fuuga, (a store name).

This is a store sign near my residence. I pass it a few times a day, but always have a difficulty to read it. Eventually I decide to pay a little attention to it, and realized that it has Romanized characters beside it. However this Romanized characters should be properly written as fuuga or fūga. I expect that it must refer to the word 風雅 (elegance), but I am not completely sure as this word normally would not be written in kana.

A store name should be simply and clear. Obviously this store chose a different principal -- it prefers to cause a visitor a little confusion and challenge them for a educated guessing.

ませ

mase, (a form of conjugation).

Walking on the street, various different types of expressions are heard --- those who are living here naturally became to ignore words without special meanings, but those who are visitors tend to pick up much more. Here is a such example: a student walking besides me asked what does it mean with ませ in いらっしゃいませ. As we have enough time to expand a discussion, so I brought up the topic of verb conjugations and how it works in the word ます.

It is always a sensitive judgement as how much grammatical discussion is necessary for a language learner. However, I am a believer that it is not only useful but essential for an university student to always realise language rules behind expressions.

生造り

iki-zukuri, a fish served alive

This term refers to a unique way to serve a fish or other seafood. It emphasizes that the prepared dish being fresh -- it is such fresh that the item presented to a table is still alive, part of them still moves. At a recent class, a student reported a link to a video clip where not only the meal at the dish, but even the fish with the remaining body was swimming at the water tank.

At a typical Japanese table, this dish would be considered purely a  gorgeous meal, and a special treat. But for many with little knowledge, this way of cooking may be extremely out of the context, often unimaginable, or even can not be tolerated. Every one likes a good meal, but in deed the expectation could be very much different.

泳ぐ骨

ワイフ

waifu, wife.

This year again, two Japanese scientist received the Nobel Prize. TV news reports them from various angles. The family life naturally became a popular topic, and interestingly enough, both of them refer to their wives as ワイフ in Japanese. Particularly because the way of their speaking are extremely gentle and polite, their manners made this choice of word stands out.

When I started to learn Japanese, I was told by my teacher that the correct way to refer to one's wife was 家内（かない）. Later, I realized that some one tend to use 妻（つま） in order to avoid the traditional color from such a word. A few years ago, I was surprised to hear my colleague with a high education referred his wife in 奥さん. Now, there is a new variation jointed to this list.

なう。

nau, "now".

Each year on this day, Dec. 1st, the announcement of "new words of the year" becomes a major news from Japan, a wonderful way to reflect the changing of the language in this rapid moving time, and to see in how little we know of the current trends in Japan. This year, among the Top Ten, more than half of them never became my knowledge, and なう。 stands out. The official site states that this became popular due to the use of Twitter, and the reason that people like it seems to be that it is written in hiragana, not in katakana as for normal foreign words.

In the Japanese class, I still have to explain to students the difference between ね, よ, な. Then, here is なう, in a total different context. To my mind, the charming point for the use of なう is because that it is placed at the end of a sentence. It is such "not" Japanese, and in a certain degree, it destroying the order of the language.

新語・流行語大賞

メンズ

menzu, "men's".

Clearly this is not the only word to indicate "male's", or things those are belong to males. Comparing with many other similar words, such as "男の", "男性の", this term presents a sort of high sense of popularity. Examples of compound words include "メンズファッション (fashion)", "メンズスタイル (style)", "メンズブランド (brand)", "メンズバッグ (bag)", etc.. A visitor to Japan may often be attracted by such a sign at an elegant department store.

Even though, when I found out a word associated with "What's Today" (Sept. 14th), I am still surprised. "メンズバレンタインデー". This one never join in my vocabulary list by now.

レッツポート

rettsu-pouto.

A radio program which I am listening to it every day now launchs a short announcement and repeats it all the time. "rettsu-pouto" is the highlight, but I had a trouble to understand it. I can see that it is a pure word-play, and the creator has little interest to spread out this one as a new expression. Still, I want to know what does it mean. After quite a few days, now I suddenly saw the answer -- it aims "repouto (report)", thus this word should be translated as "Let's (carry out our) report". I hope that I had a right answer here.

Japanese pronounciation confuses the sounds "R" and "L". Here we have a rather unique example to show this fact in an extream situation.

デイ・キャッチ！スコープ（7月5日）