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My friend is really into Japanese stuff and manga, and he's also learning Japanese. I wanted to make him a shirt with an inside joke/nickname I have for him, and I was planning on putting it in Kanji, but I want to makes sure this is correct or I'm not being inappropriate with this. I would ask him but I don't want to spoil the surprise

"Lovable Bastard" is the nickname And while searching I got "愛すべき野郎" Is this accurate?

Also, sorry if this is rude in anyway, I welcome criticism and will take my post down if I need to! Thank you for your time!

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  • Are you brazilian by the way? Saying "wanting" and omitting pronouns is a very brazilian thing to do xD
    – Manab
    Commented Nov 28, 2022 at 3:32
  • How derogatory does this "bastard" have to be? 野郎 is just a dirty way of saying "guy", but perhaps you want a clearly derogatory word now?
    – naruto
    Commented Nov 28, 2022 at 4:38

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愛すべき野郎 means bastard you must love in the sense of duty. It sounds a bit off.

愛しいバカ (lovely idiot) sounds more idiomatic I guess? Saying "baka", to me, sounds a bit more light. You can use the dicionary yourself to check the meaning https://jisho.org/search/.

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    愛すべき safely means "loveable, affable", and there is nothing wrong about it. (愛しい tends to have a romantic connotation, so it's less safe IMO)
    – naruto
    Commented Nov 28, 2022 at 3:52
  • 愛すべき is indeed described as a set expresion in the dictionary so I might be wrong. I interpreted べき with the meaning "one should/must do X" which in english is quite ambiguous and doesn't translate literally. .
    – Manab
    Commented Nov 28, 2022 at 4:01
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    I'm not an expert, but 愛すべき野郎 sounds like a better translation than 愛しいバカ to me personally. 愛しいバカ sounds like something you'd call your idiot boyfriend.. 愛すべき野郎 sounds like something you'd call that jerk you joke around with all the time..
    – Foogod
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 19:18
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    FWIW, in 愛すべき, I personally have always viewed the べき part as meaning more "can't help but (love)" (or "ya gotta love 'em, am I right?")... (in any case, as naruto says, it is a common adjectival phrase that really does generally just mean "lovable" and I think actually fits well in this case. It doesn't really have anything to do with "duty" in this usage)
    – Foogod
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 19:41
  • Thank you for your views on it. It's good to know its usage as an idiomatic phrase. Jisho.org in fact has an entry for 愛すべき as an expression. About バカ I think that vision of it is probably because of anime, but I think it's OK to use it in real life context without romantic intentions. I'm not am expert either though. But thanks for you opinion.
    – Manab
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 23:39

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