Daily Japanese: April 03, 2011 - "Anyway..."

Hello, everyone :) Today's Daily Japanese is going to be short and sweet. (I spilled the sugar when I was making iced tea...)

We are going to use a useful phrase that you will hear a lot and don't need to know any special structure or grammar to use it.

It is called とにかく tonikaku, and it means something like "anyway." You use it when you are changing subject. Like let's say you were talking about a crazy drive you were on, but then you got sidetracked talking about the price of gas, but you want to switch the topic back to the crazy drive. Just say tonikaku and you're good to go! It works best in these cases where you're returning to your main point. You could also say it means things like "in any case" or "at any rate."

The intonation rises up, like you're leading into something. Listen for it and you'll probably hear it a lot! Any time you want to switch subject or get a subject back on track while you are speaking Japanese, feel free to try this one out! You of course can do it while writing. And it can be used in some other ways, so keep an ear out and try to pick up how people are using it. The best way to learn is through exposure and picking stuff up :)

とにかく、急がなきゃなりません！