I’ve been watching some group ride vlogs of Tomomi Nishikubo (trials bike rider) and I’m having trouble understanding their usage of ヤバい. Whenever someone is impressed by a trick they usually say ほー or ヤバい. Am I correct that ヤバい means dangerous or terrible? Thanks for the input!
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Yes, but I think it’s like calling something impressive “sick” in English. Maybe more directly, we used to say “bad” for “cool/good” in the ’80s & ’90s.
Along the same lines as “Sick jumps, bro!” or “Your new ride looks bad as hell!”
Humans are weird.
Terribly cool you mean
ヤバい is a very very very broad word. You could almost compare it to the word “sick/insane”
“Damn that was sick man” could mean “that was really good” or “that was horribly twisted/evil”
Same as insane “you’re insane” “this food is insane” “this is insanely good” “this is insanely bad”
ヤバい can be terrible/good/dangerous/amazing + probably some more which you’ll find out through context
A link because they are really skilled riders!
https://youtu.be/xxG02oh63KU
I understand it as a word for “impressiveness”. You know, like “wow”. It’s not necessarily bad or good, just “very”. It’s the context and tone that determine its meaning.
This is rather young, highly informal, lazy, dumb or laid back expression depending on situations and one’s personal taste in ways of words.
The original meaning is negative, but I don’t think older people are using it unless they’re trying to sound young (like 60+). This type of meaning reversal is unique to generations younger than them, perhaps 40s and younger. Similar thing applies to the others like 全然 which was supposed to be only coupled with negative expression, but it seems like people stopped caring about that. So you may find more of these that doesn’t match up with dictionary especially in informal language.
Think of ヤバい’s definition figuratively and literally. English has many words like this too, but ヤバい can be positive or negative, like “this is dangerous.” (Negative), or “this is dangerous” (positive). You can usually tell based on the tone someone says it in as well as the context of the situation. In a negative sense, well that’s obvious. In a positive sense it’s like saying “Wow! You’re dangerously good at that!” or “Wow! This ice cream is dangerously good! I’ll get fat if I eat too much. ( > _ < )” It has that kind of feel.
Here’s a good video that I’ve seen that shows how broadly that word can be translated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KUOuqLMCRA
I felt the exact same way when I first heard younger people saying “sick” as slang for something good or impressive.
One of the stranger experiences I’ve had with the language is when a deaf Japanese man in his fifties asked me to explain to him what “yabai” means.