-ai is often pronounced as -ee in “rugged” masculine speech in Japanese.
You already got an answer. I just wanna add that you might find others, like sugoi -> sugee, not only “ai” to “ee”
Sugeeeee
From a linguistic perspective, the diphthongs “ai” and “oi” do tend to “monophthongize” into “e” – for example, Korean 애 (ae) and 외 (oe).
From a Japanese perspective, agreed with everyone else who basically says that this is just how rugged, masculine, non-formal, non-polite speech sounds like.
all of the above plus it’s associated with tokyo dialect (not sure how true this is because i’ve heard it elsewhere so like, w/e)
Piggybacking on this, I sometimes hear 海pronounced as うめ, is this an attempt to sound cute or something?
That is the “rude” way of saying it. It is just a cultural/linguistic difference.
I spent a year in Japan as a highschool exchange student (2004) and watching the boys in class argue or fight always made me laugh because they ALWAYS put on this extreme affectation. They take on this almost baritone tone and roll their R’s and get super dramatic with the hand flapping.
I almost landed myself in the middle of a couple of fights because I couldn’t stop myself from laughing at the theatrics.
But yeah that is a common thing when Japanese people (especially guys) get pissed off. The endings of the last word of most sentences changes to “ee”. So like if you wanted to tell someone to stay back, you would say “chikayoru na” but if you wanted to tell someone to “fuck off” or “get the fuck away from me” you would say “CHIKAYORRRRRU NEEE”
Urusai(うるさい) can be spelled and pronounced in two different ways.
As everyone else has been saying the more common slang for it is urusē(ウルセー)
Though another relatively common form that is also the most informal and rude and basically don’t say this, is Ussei(ウッせ)
I doubt I got the spelling correct, I was always better at speaking than writing so hopefully someone corrects me.
Japanese is a very context heavy language in the sense that the way you say certain things can change WILDLY depending on what context you are saying them.
Many men, and women more commonly nowadays, will often replace “-i” sounds with “-e” sounds.
As my teacher always put it, “don’t ask why, just remember it.”
wait until you hear “Uzza”
Urusee is more masculine.
Then you also have Ussee, which is slangy/rude/very casual
It’s think it’s kinda like “SHUTUP” vs “SHADDUP”
Urusai is a bit feminine
Its Tokyo slang that has made its way into general Japanese. It has a colloquial, casual feel. Comes from the Shitamachi dialect. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_dialect#Phonology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_dialect#Phonology)
it’s like a casual but aggressive version of urusai
I personally think it’s some sort of, rebellious form of speech. As much as I would like to use it because it does sound kind of cool ngl, I won’t. As it comes off as “unprofessional”.
I’d like to add that it’s not just a masculine thing, it’s a dialect thing as well. I think it’s mostly a Touhoku thing, but other dialects have their own monophthongizations as well: in Touhoku /äi/ becomes [ɛː] and /o̞i, e̞i/ become [eː]; in some places /o̞i/ becomes [øː] and /ɯi/ becomes [yː].
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-ai is often pronounced as -ee in “rugged” masculine speech in Japanese.
You already got an answer. I just wanna add that you might find others, like sugoi -> sugee, not only “ai” to “ee”
Sugeeeee
From a linguistic perspective, the diphthongs “ai” and “oi” do tend to “monophthongize” into “e” – for example, Korean 애 (ae) and 외 (oe).
From a Japanese perspective, agreed with everyone else who basically says that this is just how rugged, masculine, non-formal, non-polite speech sounds like.
all of the above plus it’s associated with tokyo dialect (not sure how true this is because i’ve heard it elsewhere so like, w/e)
Piggybacking on this, I sometimes hear 海pronounced as うめ, is this an attempt to sound cute or something?
That is the “rude” way of saying it.
It is just a cultural/linguistic difference.
I spent a year in Japan as a highschool exchange student (2004) and watching the boys in class argue or fight always made me laugh because they ALWAYS put on this extreme affectation.
They take on this almost baritone tone and roll their R’s and get super dramatic with the hand flapping.
I almost landed myself in the middle of a couple of fights because I couldn’t stop myself from laughing at the theatrics.
But yeah that is a common thing when Japanese people (especially guys) get pissed off. The endings of the last word of most sentences changes to “ee”.
So like if you wanted to tell someone to stay back, you would say “chikayoru na” but if you wanted to tell someone to “fuck off” or “get the fuck away from me” you would say “CHIKAYORRRRRU NEEE”
Urusai(うるさい) can be spelled and pronounced in two different ways.
As everyone else has been saying the more common slang for it is urusē(ウルセー)
Though another relatively common form that is also the most informal and rude and basically don’t say this, is Ussei(ウッせ)
I doubt I got the spelling correct, I was always better at speaking than writing so hopefully someone corrects me.
Japanese is a very context heavy language in the sense that the way you say certain things can change WILDLY depending on what context you are saying them.
Many men, and women more commonly nowadays, will often replace “-i” sounds with “-e” sounds.
As my teacher always put it, “don’t ask why, just remember it.”
wait until you hear “Uzza”
Urusee is more masculine.
Then you also have Ussee, which is slangy/rude/very casual
It’s think it’s kinda like “SHUTUP” vs “SHADDUP”
Urusai is a bit feminine
Its Tokyo slang that has made its way into general Japanese. It has a colloquial, casual feel. Comes from the Shitamachi dialect. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_dialect#Phonology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_dialect#Phonology)
it’s like a casual but aggressive version of urusai
I personally think it’s some sort of, rebellious form of speech. As much as I would like to use it because it does sound kind of cool ngl, I won’t. As it comes off as “unprofessional”.
I’d like to add that it’s not just a masculine thing, it’s a dialect thing as well. I think it’s mostly a Touhoku thing, but other dialects have their own monophthongizations as well: in Touhoku /äi/ becomes [ɛː] and /o̞i, e̞i/ become [eː]; in some places /o̞i/ becomes [øː] and /ɯi/ becomes [yː].