Timeline for Is it cool to use かっこいい in this way?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 9, 2012 at 3:52 | comment | added | Billy | @DaveMG: Makes sense, and I somewhat agree with you. Perhaps I've accidentally swept under the rug what Paul said. I didn't even understand the title of this post correctly when I first saw it - not only is this use of "cool" to mean "acceptable" very modern and non-standard English, it's also very specific to America (and those who watch too much American TV ;)). It's unreasonable to assume words like "cool" and "かっこいい" (which aren't really that similar anyway, outside of a few contexts!) have developed in the same way, I think. I wrote my comment with this in mind, but failed to voice it. :) | |
| Feb 8, 2012 at 3:17 | vote | accept | Questioner | ||
| Feb 6, 2012 at 4:41 | comment | added | Questioner | @PaulRichter: Agreed. Partially I'm wondering how the term かっこいい is evolving and how fast. I believe かっこいい is undergoing a similar shift in meaning as "cool" has done, but the question is to what degree they might be similar in their arc of progression. | |
| Feb 6, 2012 at 3:59 | comment | added | Paul Richter | Perhaps it's not even an issue of Japanese. Forty years ago, "that was uncool of me" probably would not have been understood by English speakers, even though the meaning of "cool" was basically the same as it is now. | |
| Feb 6, 2012 at 1:41 | comment | added | Questioner | @Billy: I partly agree with your advise. To never assume. On the other hand, though, fear of experimentation can be detrimental. One way you reinforce learning is by making mistakes. Two good things can come of making making mistakes. One is that when you're confronted with being wrong, it makes a strong impact which informs you of the right way of doing things. The other good result is you can discover new things. After all, language isn't rigid, and it's entirely possible to come up with acceptable turns of phrase that native speakers haven't yet. :) | |
| Feb 5, 2012 at 17:29 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackJapanese/status/166211769264652288 | ||
| Feb 5, 2012 at 16:26 | comment | added | Billy | I hope this doesn't seem like obvious and patronising advice, but I think the correct thing to do if you're not sure is to assume idioms, slang and alternative meanings don't translate and rephrase your sentence unambiguously. It's for this reason that, when learning a word, I will always look up examples of where Japanese people have used it and then assume (until told otherwise) that those are the only meanings allowed. In short, never learn a word out of context. :) | |
| Feb 5, 2012 at 3:22 | comment | added | Questioner | Ah... the "I immediately mark everything down for no good reason and never explain myself" bandit has struck again. | |
| Feb 5, 2012 at 2:48 | answer | added | dainichi | timeline score: 5 | |
| Feb 5, 2012 at 2:30 | history | asked | Questioner | CC BY-SA 3.0 |