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I am having trouble understanding the second sentence below.

ぼくのせいふくです。かっこいいな。

I understand that ぼく is "I / myself" for a boy, and adding a の to it makes it a "my". I also know that せいふく is "uniform", and understand that the first sentence means "This is my uniform." However, I do not understand the other sentence.

かっこいいな means "cool" but how is the word used individually as a sentence? Is this a typo, or am I misunderstood? Is the っ supposed to not be small, but rather it's normal size to mean a different word of some sort?

This is my first question on the Japanese Stack Exchange. I am familiar with the Stack Exchange, and am a student learning Japanese who desires to go to Japan and perhaps live there. I am highly interested in their culture, and I also really love mathematics, for which I also post questions on the Mathematics Stack Exchange.

Anything that I need to know, please tell me in comments or answers.

Thank you in advance.

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    Does it really say ぼくのせいふです?
    – Leebo
    Commented Apr 20, 2018 at 4:51
  • @Leebo no, I forgot the く. Sorry about that. I guess I thought I wrote it but actually did not, because looking back at my Japanese notes, I wrote せいふ, which is incorrect.
    – Mr Pie
    Commented Apr 20, 2018 at 6:55
  • @naruto ありがとうございます、なると for the edit. (By the way, the little circles are actually ten-tens, though they appear like circles, at least in my eyes.)
    – Mr Pie
    Commented Apr 20, 2018 at 7:01

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First of all, I am not exactly sure about the word せいふ. If it means uniform, it should be せいふく(制服).

Regarding かっこいいな, with the information you gave above, I would think that it was his new uniform and that was his first time that he saw it. What he wanted to say should be “This is my uniform! It’s so~ cool~~!”

IMHO, there is nothing wrong with かっこいいな in this sentence, since he is describing his uniform with the phrase “cool”.

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    I agree. It's totally acceptable in English to just say "Cool!" Also, in Japanese, pronouns are not used often, so words like he/she/they/we/you/it have to be inferred from context. So it would also be totally normal to translate "kakkoii na" exactly as user2528260 described.
    – ericfromabeno
    Commented Apr 20, 2018 at 6:38
  • @ericfromabeno thank you for explaining. I know we can say "Cool!" but I generally wouldn't use it in this context.
    – Mr Pie
    Commented Apr 20, 2018 at 6:53
  • Thank you for the explanation. I just assumed it was something like, "Cool, isn't it?" or some sort. I also forgot the く so thanks for that as well, and I did not know it could also be expressed in Kanji :)
    – Mr Pie
    Commented Apr 20, 2018 at 6:55
  • if you want to translate it as the question "Cool, isn't it?" that would be acceptable too, if the person is speaking to someone else. If they are speaking to themselves though, "So cool!" "It's so cool!" makes the most sense.
    – ericfromabeno
    Commented Apr 20, 2018 at 7:12

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