1

I've started reading a light slice-of-life comedy manga called からかい上手の高木さん. I was wondering why the title is written that way, it seems a bit strange to me. Shouldn't it be 高木さんの上手なからかい?

1 Answer 1

9

からかい上手の高木さん refers to Takagi-san as good at teasing. In this context, the からかい上手 is an adjective, which always come before the noun in Japanese, even where subordinate clauses would be used in English. If it were written the other way around, it would be talking about Takagi-san's skillful teasing (where teasing is the topic rather than Takagi-san).

Grammatically it checks out, but it's the difference between talking about "Takagi, who is skillful at teasing", and "Takagi's skillful teasing."

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .