Hello,
How is the kind of apartment building pictured below (pretty common in European cities) called in Japanese?
Is it マンション?
Is it マンション?
I’d say so, but I’d also say you’d be quite unlikely to find that particular architectural style in Japan.
2 Likes
Yes, that’s exactly why I asked 
I live in one of such buildings (and in a few months I might be moving into the one in the picture 
), so I was curious how should I talk about it in Japanese.
タウンハウス? Probably not
I would lean toward アパート, because it’s not very tall, and it’s not concrete, but as was said, since it’s not Japanese, there probably isn’t one right answer.
2 Likes
欧風のマンション - European-style condominium?
Would that work?
3 Likes
I think the definition of building types is really mess-up around the world lol.
1 Like
Ah, I thought that アパート would point to the one of the flats in the building, but if it can be used for the whole building, then perhaps it could work
Somehow I imagined in my head, that there’s a マンション that has mutltiple アパート inside.
So, combining @Leebo’s and @FirstMate-san 's suggestions - 欧風のアパート?
1 Like
アパート can be an abbreviation for “apartment” in the sense of the room you rent, but more often it’s short for “apartment builiding”. As I alluded to before, アパート indicates a smaller, usually older style of construction. マンション are usually tall and more modern.
3 Likes
Thanks for correcting my misconception - I thought it was the other way around
And the building in question is indeed quite old - it’s from the end of the 19th century.
Not sure if this useful, but might be for the future.
There is also a thing called 団地 which is an apartment complex, many of which were built in the second half of the XX century. One could imagine many アパート being in a 団地.
Edit: this discussion suddenly made me interested in urban planning 
1 Like
Throwing 団地 into Google image search, it seems to bring out similar results as マンション - modern, tall multi-apartment buildings built from concrete. It’s just that results for マンション seem to be restricted to the more “luxury” ones, while 団地 seems to cover broader range.
But for those smaller buildings such as the one I asked about, アパート seems to be the closest match.
1 Like
団地 are always large groups of very similar buildings operated by a single entity. Sometimes it’s almost like a small town within itself. When I first lived in Japan, I lived in a 団地. Yes, the individual buildings are like マンション, but the critical difference was that there were roughly 25 very large buildings in the complex, and there was only one road to get in. Within the complex there were some shops and a post office as well, but no other residences.
4 Likes
I’m watching 呪術廻戦 and I’m a bit confuse about this scene. They ask “what kind of person do you like”. Nobara (this girl) said she can’t stand a man that かいしょうなし, きんけつ, くさい, けち, and こときれてる. The English subtitles translated as good-for-nothing, poor, stinky, petty, and dead.
My question is “Does こときれてる really means dead?”. 事切れてる could literally translated as dead, but I feel like it should be some kind of slang about man’s personality.
It does not make much sense to me even in an anime level of logic.
1 Like
It might be a slang, but I encountered some memes (in the west) when guys joke about their requirements/standards for a girl by saying “must be alive”
But in this case, going by the another meaning of 事切れてる I’d say that it could perhaps mean “expired” as in “too old”?
2 Likes
I don’t think that quite fits the context, mostly those memes are about having insanely low standards (i.e. “if she has a pulse, I’m good”) - not quite the thing you’d put after a bunch of standards
4 Likes
I understand that kind of meme lol.
However, it would not fit the character. Nobara is a girl with strong personality and has very high standard about man types.
1 Like
I think it may just be a joke? I can’t find any slang meaning for it, but I think it’s more of an or list than and and list.
So fitting any of those criteria means they’re no good, and being dead is just one of those criteria. Stating the obvious, of course, but the same kind of joke as “I like my soup hot, fresh, well-seasoned and without concrete” I guess.
Was there any sort of followup to that remark?
2 Likes
Nah it’s just end there.
Some random comment (with high upvote) on YouTube claims that
“It’s not the literal meaning of “dead”. “kotokireteru” means someone who rarely talk or talks in a difficult way to understand. It’s translated “dead” because you can’t feel/relate anything from the person who doesn’t know how to communicate”
But I can’t find any proof about it. Kinda make sense but it’s just a random comment on the internet.
3 Likes
There’s also a possibility of mistake/error in the subtitles - maybe translator just grabbed the first meaning from JP-EN dictionary
2 Likes