I’ve been sentence and word mining from anime and some words stick with me.
むっちゃ, めっちゃ , 超 (chou) , when used to mean “very”. I was tempted to use these terms when talking to my sensei in class but stopped myself.
I wasn’t sure if it was rude or inappropriate, since I’m still a beginner. I know these are words meant to be used with friends in a casual context, but the feeling in class is very casual and I’m way older than sensei in any case. We often have casual conversation during breaks or before/after class.
Is it rude for me to use such terms while still a learner? Should slang be reserved for people who are fluent?
3 comments
Those aren’t really anime terms. They’re every day Slang.
They’re also not particularly rude or crass. Especially めっちゃ which is so common as to just be sort of normal.
If you’re having a seriois conversation about your future, They’re probably not the right words, just like it’s probably not the place to throw “Like” and “y’know” in in English. But if you’re just shooting the shit in class or office hours, there’s nothing particularly wrong with it.
You teacher doesn’t care as long as you’re doing your assignments.
If you’re learning extra grammar and expressions outside of class it means you’re going above and beyond.
If the expressions are something you’re using in a written assignment or one on one with your instructor then it’s just practice. As long as it’s relevant to what you’re learning at the time.
The only time this is inconsiderate is if you’re forcing the other students in class to need constant explanation because they don’t have the same exposure.
In this sense there is a chance it’s taking away from their learning environment.
It’s pretty common for people in n5 or n4 college classes to be beyond that level from either high-school, self teaching, or exposure via family or previously living abroad.
I had a couple in my classes who lived in Japan as children and were probably late n3-n2 when they started genki. So the first two years were a breeze for them.
They usually don’t show off, but their grasp of the language can sometime be apparent by their proficiency in more complex vocabulary and grammar. Which is fine as long as their contributing to the classroom environment.
Sometimes a curriculum requires x amount of credits in the language, 101 before 10x, or the students just don’t coordinate well with their program advisors and are repeating books they used in high-school.
Either way, absolutely keep learning vocabulary and grammar from sources outside of class. Practice them as much as you can.
Language partners are usually better opportunities than during in class exercises.
Please think of this as my notes as a student shared with you as another – I’m not Japanese, even if I was I don’t think one person can speak for everyone, and I really don’t want to speak from authority.
A big ah-hah moment for me was realizing that Japanese culture encourages a personality that’s colorful on the inside but drab on the outside – it is good to have hobbies and opinions and quirks as long as you tone them down whenever is appropriate. If “anime speech bad” mishaps happen it’s probably because of this. Not too many people are going to think badly of you because your inner child enjoys Naruto and wants to randomly shout 螺旋丸！ (らせんがん) but it’s not like you can actually do that – this is true in Western cultures as well, it’s just *more* true in Japan.
And because you’re still learning Japanese you won’t always be aware of whether something has anime-ish tone or not. (Which is really fiction-ish tone, pretty much all fiction has this quality. It’s stronger in some genres but anime as a medium isn’t an outlier.) So don’t worry, but also be ready to take corrections well.
The other 10% of “actually, no, you shouldn’t say that” isn’t much of a concern for teen-friendly or “I’m done with work and just want to unwind with something cute” anime. There is more niche adult anime that’s particularly vicious or sexually charged and I’d urge more caution with that language.
Looking through the top anime currently according to MAL, *Konosuba* pops out to me as one that is most risky. The characters are occasionally lecherous and always just terrible people – which is the joke. It’s a consistently entertaining series so I wouldn’t judge anyone for watching it but I wouldn’t imitate it.