Kuso! - What NOT to say in Japanese - swearing, sex, and general rudness

Okama is something I’ve gotten from manga/anime, like Gintama which has a bunch of okama characters, who are really not just gay, they are transsexual characters. So I think that’s implied. A bit like femme gay?! I’m not sure…

I guess using English for gay [gei] might give a feeling of distancing from the meaning of the word, which happens to loan words generally speaking, thus they seem less crude somehow. [not just true for Japanese, but other languages].

I just remembered, there’s also neko for feminine gay men. Not very polite!

Maybe, onabe is akin to calling someone a dyke?

I had no idea this was an argument! I’m outta here! :joy:

9 Likes

Not saying it was. Just that the last time we had a discussion about 外人 and 外国人 we made it into the master list of arguments thread :sweat_smile:

10 Likes

I just remembered from the manga Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai [with its yakuza themes]: deka is slang for policeman.

(I don’t know what the actual English equivalent is though.)

1 Like

I’d stay clear of that one, trust me. It certainly got interesting :joy:

2 Likes

I can’t see that it goes against the guidelines, personally - as you said, it’s not supposed to be about explicit or obscence stuff, besides which it’s for educational purposes.

It might be worth people putting more rude stuff behind spoiler tags; it can be easy to forget that there are some fairly young people using the forums. But the topic title makes it fairly obvious for anybody who wants to self-select out of anything of this nature. You might have to moderate somewhat to keep it appropriate :stuck_out_tongue:

5 Likes

Since this is my first actual thread, I’m not sure what’s expected from me. But, I’ll try my best to point people in the right direction if need be! Gambarimasu! ^^

2 Likes

I didn’t mean to imply that it would be considered your fault if other people didn’t follow the guidelines - just that if they don’t, the *potential* consequence is your thread getting locked :stuck_out_tongue: so you might have a vested interest in that not happening.

Some previous threads that might be relevant:

3 Likes

I’m thankful for the heads-up. I added an instruction about the spoiler tags which I hope people make use of. You’re right. Things might get out of hand! ^^;

2 Likes

While I do get that teme and omae are both rude ways of saying you, I’ve actually heard a native speaker make use of teme.

It was during an interview with voice actors Ken Narita, Kappei Yamaguchi, and Toshiyuki Morikawa (talking about BL stuff).

Narita and Kappei have quite the familiarity between them - they’re essentially like an old married couple in conversation with each other :rofl:. That’s when Kappei says teme to Narita-san, after being deliberately teased during the interview by Narita-san. :laughing:

2 Likes

Yeah, I think that’s the thing, right? You have to know your conversational partner and how it will go down with them - so it’s usually safest as a non-native speaker just to avoid like the plague :sweat_smile:

I think the only swear I know in Japanese (other than your example in the titel) is ちくしょう :thinking: and I see it used in anime all the time, so I don’t think it’s exactly the worst word ever :joy:

2 Likes

I’ve been wondering if there are kanji attached to chikushou and kuso? I mean the latter is “shit” right? The former I’ve always interpreted as “damn”.

Yes! Well, I only know about the former, because it’s in WaniKani :grin:

I think it depends whether you’re using it generally or in reference to somebody - it seems to be like “damn it”, but the literal meaning is more like “beast”, so it’s closer to son of a bitch if directed at someone?

1 Like

Possibly the worst one I’ve heard used in real life is チンカス野郎, which I thought was pretty funny (it helped it wasn’t targetting me). It taught me that you can basically add anything before 野郎 and make it into an insult.

My favourite, however, is たこ, like when it’s used by Tora-san.

2 Likes

I can’t remember ever hearing chikushou being used about someone else. I’m not sure that can be done, grammatically speaking. :thinking:

Anyway, I’ll look forward to encountering it in later levels then! :laughing:

Actually, is there any Japanese swear word beyond those two? The rest seems to be about impoliteness, like omae, not using keigo etc…

It’s used in the manga 放浪息子 a few times towards one or two of the main characters. Definitely not a word you want to use.

1 Like

By the way, I don’t think there’s a problem with this topic per se, but should we move it to #campfire so it’s not indexed by search engines and so non-users can’t view the topic?

2 Likes

Huh, maybe I know more than I thought! Also, :laughing: at your example - not something I ever thought I’d learn in Japanese!

I’ve just remembered I also learned one this week from the Laid-Back Camp manga, of all things:

くたばれ - meaning “drop dead” or, more explicitly, f*** you. Jisho actually lists this one as vulgar. Apparently it comes from the verb くたばる, meaning “to drop dead” or “to kick the bucket”, and which gets the derogatory tag from Jisho.

Well, WK has the meaning I mentioned, and Jisho has the meaning “brute (i.e. a contemptible human being)” [noun]. I don’t know how that translates to usage in real life though.

1 Like

I wouldn’t know how to do that…hmm :thinking: But, this is about the Japanese language really, so… A moderator will have to step in if they think that’s needed.

I must unlearn what I have learned! :upside_down_face:

edit: (I always thought it was more directed at oneself as in dammit, that was stupid of me - whatever it was that you did wrong)