22
but I am constantly baffled by why certain loan words from English are constructed using certain katakana sounds.
Loan words do not necessarily need to be borrowed from English. In fact, most old loan words (in the 外来語 sense) were borrowed from Portuguese.
For example, if someone asked me to say "energy" in Japanese, I would have guessed エナジー or maybe ...
22
The particle な indeed has both meanings: "Don't do ～" and "Do ～". From デジタル大辞泉:
１ 動詞・動詞型助動詞の終止形、ラ変型活用語の連体形に付く。禁止の意を表す。「油断する―」「まだ帰る―」「かの尼君などの聞かむに、おどろおどろしく言ふ―」〈源・夕顔〉
２ 《補助動詞「なさる」の命令形「なさい」の省略形》動詞・動詞型助動詞の連用形に付く。命令の意を表す。「早く行き―」「好きなようにやり―」
To distinguish, な means "don't" when it follows the dictionary-form, and "do" when it follows the masu-stem.
するな。 ...
17
They're contracted from かけちゃおう and つないじゃおう, which are colloquial versions of 駆{か}けてしまおう and 繋{つな}いでしまおう, "let's run" and "lets connect", in this case 手を繋ぐ, "hold hands"
The auxiliary verb しまう usually means "do something accidentally", but in this case in the volitional form, it's used to express carefreeness.
手を繋いじゃおう Let's hold hands (and not care ...
15
1 and 2 are conjunctive だって used at the beginning of a sentence.
買わなかったよ。だって、高かったんだ。
I didn't buy it. [After all / Because] it was expensive.
「買えって言ったでしょう？」「だって、高かったんだ。」
"Didn't I tell you to buy it?" "But it was expensive!"
This kind of だって is used to argue back, or to provide further explanation to convince someone. It's translated as "but" ...
15
This is just "Hi".
こんちゃ/こんちわ/ちわ/ちは/etc is a very casual version of こんにちは. Of course this は is pronounced "wa".
For "ーす", see: What does っす at the end of a sentence mean?
Jisho.org also has an entry for this. Other variations include ちわっす, こんちゃっす, ちゃーっす, ちゃーす, ちっす and ちーす.
14
This doesn't only happen with じゃない > じゃねえ, but generally /ai/ > /ee/, like
きたない > きたねえ
やばい > やべえ
(食{た}べたい = ) 食{く}いたい > 食いてえ
As in the other answer, this is extremely informal and in the wrong context can easily be considered plain rude.
Xと違う = to differ from X
完成前 = before completion
Edit.
For completeness, there's also
/ae/ > /ee/
e.g. お前 > おめえ
/...
13
って is a colloquial particle and has two main functions.
Being used as a colloquial topic marker (instead of は or とは), e.g.
人ってすごいよね。
People are awesome.
Being used as a quotation marker (instead of と or という), e.g.
変な人って言ってたよ。
She said you are a little weird.
人って言葉は何か変だな。
The word "hito" is kinda weird.
12
をば is basically the particles を + は combined together. It works like を but places extra emphasis on the object (in theory; in practice this "extra emphasis" might be diluted so that it basically just signals formal style).
So this sort of をば works like the を in "ご協力を！" (as a complete utterance) -- there is an action implied, but the actual verb is left ...
12
Chakoshi to the rescue! (Chakoshi is a tool for searching both the Aozora and conversational Japanese corpora at Nagoya University.)
A quick search for a "[noun]ん[noun]" pattern in the conversational corpus gives 262 results, most of which are what you are asking about. Broken down, there's actually not much variety in the nouns that follow ん:
とき (99): ...
12
It's fairly common for both ai and ae to be slurred to ee in colloquial speech.
For example:
じゃない → じゃねぇ janai → janee
のみたい → のみてぇ nomitai → nomitee
おまえ → おめぇ omae → omee
てまえ → てめぇ temae → temee
Your example has an additional contraction. When a vowel is dropped between r and n, you end up with rn. This isn't pronounceable, so it ...
12
I'm Japanese and don't know well about the English idiom "to be out of it." But I think I know some useful Japanese words for your situations.
「頭が働かない」
This expression is natural to say when you have a cold, fever or other bad condition and can't understand or think about things well temporary. "I'm sorry I have a cold so I'm a bit out of it." ...
11
It's a shortening of って言うの! or って言っているの! and shows some irritation on the part of the speaker. "What I'm telling you is . . .!" There's some good explanations here: http://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/1847367.html
11
It's ambiguous whether いらして would be a form of いらしる or いらす, but neither verb exists in the standard language.
いらす isn't listed in dictionaries as a word because it's not a separate verb with a full range of forms. It would be more accurate to say that いらし is a reduced form of いらっしゃっ, the 音便形 of いらっしゃる. (The 音便形 is the altered form of the 連用形 that appears ...
11
That P (simply read ピー) stands for プロデューサー ("Producer"). Traditionally, P has been used like a name suffix for a super-high executive in the showbiz/broadcasting/anime industry (someone even higher than a "D", or 監督/director). However, after the success of the Idolm@aster franchise, where a "producer" has a role closer to that of an agent or a manager, this "...
10
As Tsuyoshi says, there is no truth to it. The earliest reference given in the [日]{に}[本]{ほん}[国]{こく}[語]{ご}[大]{だい}[辞]{じ}[典]{てん} is from the mid-13th century [観]{かん}[智]{じ}[院]{いん}[本]{ぼん} edition of the [類]{るい}[聚]{じゅ}[名]{みょう}[義]{ぎ}[抄]{しょう}:
盖 オホフ カフル
Even English barely had the word cover at that point.
Also, according to the same dictionary, かぶる is derived ...
10
The second paragraph can be answered in large part by What changes are made to the pronunciation of gairaigo? and by Less-approximate and more-approximate forms of loan words and by Different transcriptions for words with related origin .
As for the third paragraph, Wikipedia says the Agency for Cultural Affairs (文化庁) at the Ministry of Education of Japan (...
10
The first sentence could be expanded to
高いなんてもんじゃないよ。むちゃくちゃ高いんだよ。
It's not (just) huge. It's humongous.
and the first part would be written as
高いというものじゃないよ。
As for the second sentence, separating the sentence as
人が多かったの 何の って
the 何の is used to repeat the structure of the first part, but could be replaced with anything, indicating that the ...
10
Like @himself noted, it does mean 葉人をつかまえたんだな. While some dialects do have this change, more importantly it's used to characterise the speaker as a stereotypical wise old male (usually in anime or otherwise in a fiction).
10
～っぴ/～っち is a sort of "suffix" which generates cute-sounding nicknames. Think of it as an rough equivalent of -ie as in doggie, walkie-talkie, etc.
へたっぴ (下手【へた】 + っぴ, clumsy person)
けろけろけろっぴ (けろけろ + っぴ)
たまごっち (たまご + っち)
弱っぴい itself is not common (probably I haven't seen this before), but it should simply mean "weak boy/guy".
10
For casual, which is acceptable as a client I would go with
じゃあ、カレーにします。
If you want to be more polite then
それなら、カレーにします。
じゃあ means : then; well; so; well then
それなら means : if that's the case
10
There are at least three types of omission of く, which should be distinguished.
The "traditional western" euphoric change is called ウ音便 and is described in this question, this one and a chart in this page. ku becomes (y)u, etc. This sounds old-fashioned and elegant. While this is commonly heard in samurai dramas, only a few courteous elder people use this ...
9
I hear 「まだ見ていない。」, which seems entirely normal, comparable to the English construction "I still haven't seen it." => "I'm in a still-continuing state of not seeing it." I suppose there's some element of volition here; it's still possible for her to see it if she wants to. For example, if a pterodactyl flew overhead, and you missed seeing it, you would say 「...
9
あー
うーむ
うーん
うーんと
えー
えーっと
えーと
そのう
ふうむ
んー
I am sure there are more.
8
I think that modern common sense would assume that men at kon'yoku who wait for women to come would be similar to the crocodile who quietly waits for their prey. However, while easily understandable, think that is folk etymology.
The term is used outside of hot springs as well. Also, you need to remember that crocodiles originally did not originally habitat ...
8
微妙{びみょう} has been going through an evolution during the time I've been in Japan. There was a time, maybe about a decade ago, when it seemed to be one of those popular words that people would over use. Similar to how there was a fad for a time, mostly with younger people, to add 超{ちょう}("ultra~") to almost everything for emphasis.
Being that slang is, by ...
8
I was just now idly browsing through saiga-jp.com and stumbled upon:
大きなお世話だ（おおきなおせわだ） / This is none of your business., Never you mind.
8
As a Phenomena of Fast/Casual Speech
As Tsujimura(2007) describes, this a non-mandatory phonological process (not a syntactical one) called nasal syllabification. Consider these examples and a non-example as they might be written in native orthography:
来るのなら → 来るんなら
君のうち → 君んち
しらない → しんない
かえらない → かえんない
おくらない → おくんない
学者になる → 学者んなる
僕のうち → ...
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