2

I saw this on an app, and I was a bit confused. I know goodnight in Japanese is usually おやすみなさい, or the less formal form, おやすみ, but what exactly does おじゃすみなさい mean? Is it some slang way of saying goodnight, or does it have some other meaning. The unreliable Google translated it as meaning "I'm sorry", which I surely don't trust, as it's almost never accurate. So is it a slang term, or did the person just write it wrong?

Improve this question
4
  • 4
    There is no such a phrase as おじゃすみなさい, even as a slang term. It's perhaps a typo, but it may be some kind of wordplay or a pun that makes sense only in some context. (Google knows several examples of おじゃすみなさい, but it also knows examples of おにゃすみなさい, おりゃすみなさい, and so on...)
    – naruto
    Oct 21, 2020 at 3:43
  • @naruto Really? My friends and I used to say this all the time. Anyway, related: Speech impediment - slurred speech.
    – istrasci
    Dec 8, 2020 at 17:11
  • @istrasci You mean you say おじゃすみなさい all the time? Then it's either that you've misheard something or that it's a very local usage...People shorten fixed phrases aggressively, but おじゃすみ cannot be explained as part of such a process.
    – naruto
    Dec 8, 2020 at 17:18
  • @naruto Yes, we said that as kind of a 子供っぽい way for "good night". Or like someone who caught a cold would say it.
    – istrasci
    Dec 8, 2020 at 19:27

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

Years ago, in the age before the iPhone, my wife had a DoCoMo flip-phone with a Java-based OS. When you opened the phone, a cartoon bear character would appear and say some things. I think he was called クーマン or something like that. He “spoke” with a lisp of sorts, saying things like おはようございまふ and 行きまふぉう！

Depending on the app, おじゃすみなさい might be a deliberate affectation intended to show a funny pronunciation — maybe a lisp, or a stuffy nose, that kind of thing.

As others have noted, おじゃすみなさい is not itself a meaningful phrase. And never trust Google Translate. It is capable of some really bizarre and unhelpful “translations”, especially for shorter strings.

Improve this answer
-1

I think that the translator interpreted おじゃすみなさい as じゃ、済みなさい which is the same 済む as in 済みません。

Anyway, if you want to say ‘Good night’, the correct one is おやすみなさい, not おじゃすみなさい.

Hope that helps.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

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