Daily Japanese: April 02, 2011 - "That sucks!"

Today I want to talk about two very common phrases that you can incorporate easily into everyday life. But first, here's a video of a cute Japanese girl learning the other way around -- how to say this in English:




I'd also like to note that the girl teaching the English in this video is a good example of yesterday's Daily Japanese, tarento. The pop-idol group, ココナツ娘。 (kokonatu musume. - Coconut Girls.), had very short-lived popularity, leeching from their sister group モーニング娘。 (mooningu musume. - Morning Girls.) While most of the girls left the group and went on to pursue other things, leader Ayaka got stuck in being a TV personality. The only real "talent" she had was her fluent English. So she appeared in little segments like this and other various things, and was talked about in the media.

But anyway, let's get to the real heart of the matter here. How to say "That sucks!" in Japanese! The two phrases I want to introduce you two today are the following:

最高 - さいこう - saikou
最低 - さいてい - saitei

If you look at the Chinese characters used to write them, the sai 最 part means "most," and the second parts, kou 高 and tei 低, mean "high" and "low" respectively. So essentially, these two phrases mean "Absolute Top" and "Absolute Bottom." More colloquially, you could think of them as meaning "best of the best" and "worst of the worst."

When just used alone, I often see saitei translated as "That sucks!" or "This sucks!" or things like that, and rightfully so. Saying that something 'sucks' is pretty much like saying "That's the worst!" right? So if you want to say something sucks or is really bad, just say saitei!

The same is true for the opposite. I can't say I see many translations of it saying something polar... I haven't ran into a translation of saikou as "This rocks!" but it does carry similar meaning.

Although they seem descriptive, like "best" and "worst," they are nominal words (which means to make a predicate of them, you'll use the copula, like 最高だ。) But when using them colloquially, you can easily drop most of what you're saying.

Quite often you'll hear a pattern like この番組、最高！(kono bangumi, saikou!) or その人、最低。 (sono hito, saitei.)

Basically, you just point out some object like kono bangumi - "this show," or sono hito - "that guy," and then modify it with one of the two words. It means "This show is the best!" or "That guy is the worst." It's very colloquial and sounds really natural, so try it out.

Next time you have your favorite coffee after not having it for a while and want to say to your friend "Damn, I love this coffee!" consider saying 「このコーヒー、最高！」 (kono koohii, saikou!) to express essentially the same thing in Japanese :)

Or maybe next time you are frustrated with something, just shout 最低！ (saite!) for a classic "This totally reeks!" feeling! I taught this to my friend, and now she says it all the time. (Don't be a Negative Nancy though. Some things are 最高, too!)

Be careful when saying saitei about another person, because it's a very mean thing to say!

Even though it's simple, saying little things like this in every day life helps get you used to thinking in Japanese! And remember, you could translate these little phrases tons of ways depending on your mood, so don't think of them in English, just let them flow naturally. They're pretty easy to understand, so after only a little bit of using them, they should feel natural to you :)

And if you don't understand この,その, and あの (kono, sono, and ano), be sure to look those up before you start using them!

Of course, you can use these phrases in all kinds of ways other than just how I mentioned them here. They can also be used a lot more literally and less colloquially. Just listen out for them when you're listening to Japanese. You may be surprised how often they turn up!

やっぱり日本語の勉強、最高ですよね！