Now this is just priceless:
A contributor to a mailing list for Japanese-English translation that I read reports that the verb obamu is gaining currency on the Kyoto University campus. He writes, “It means something along the lines of, ‘to ignore anything which appears to make you likely to fail or (be) wrong, and blindly surge ahead (preferably chanting, “yes we can, yes we can”)’.” He adds that he heard a friend jokingly try to cheer someone up by saying, “obandoke, omae.”
If I had to translate that on the fly, it would come out something like, “Lighten up and think positive, guy!”
A quick look at the Japanese-language turf on the Internet turns up few examples, but one in particular is meaningful. I found it as an entry dated 22 September in a collection of slang and modern usage put together by the Japanese Teachers’ Network in Kitakyushu. Here’s what they write:
obamu: (v.) To ignore inexpedient and inconvenient facts or realities, think “Yes we can, Yes we can,” and proceed with optimism using those facts as an inspiration (literally, as fuel). It is used to elicit success in a personal endeavor. One explanation holds that it is the opposite of kobamu. (which means to refuse, reject, or oppose).
So… how does one say “Kool-Aid” in Japanese?
(Courtesy of here, here, here, here, and finally here.)
Kuraidu
Speaking Japanese is easy!!
Hm. You hopefully will not mind if I double-check that…
Shit-you-not! Japanese they take non-Japanese words, translate them into Japanese phonetics and scribe them out in Katakana.
Makes for very interesting speech as an American talking about American things in Japan as words like “McDonalds” become near inpronouncable by Gaijin, and you simply can’t slip into an American Accent because Makudonurudo IS the Japanese Word for “McDonalds”
Well crap. I never would have guessed. I had heard that they were about as bad as we are for making up words and/or adopting them from other languages, but I never would have guessed they took it quite that far
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