痛車 [いたしゃ] – a car painted with cartoon/anime characters (lit: “painful car” because it is painful to look at)

捗る [はかどる] – to make progress (i.e. with schoolwork, etc.)

研究論文は捗ってますか？
How is your research paper coming along?

苦あれば楽あり [くあればらくあり] is a favorite saying of mine.  But in looking around the internet, I think that some of the translations into English that I see (e.g. “every cloud has a silver lining” or “no pain, no gain”) don’t quite cut it.  Granted, they may be the closest native English proverbs we have available, but my goal isn’t to get you to understand Japanese in terms of English equivalency, but rather in terms of understanding Japanese as Japanese.

苦 has a variety of meanings, but all tend to fall into the area of bitterness/hardship/suffering.  あれば simply means “if exists” or “if (one) has.”  楽 is often used when describing music (e.g. 音楽) but also has connotations of fun, ease, or comfort.  All this taken together, the phrase really means something more like “if you struggle through bitter hardship, you will have ease.”

There’s a flavor (pardon the pun) to this that, in my opinion, isn’t quite there in either of the aforementioned English versions.  “Every cloud has a silver lining” seems to be too fairytale-ish and passive for me, and “no pain, no gain” doesn’t really talk about what the “pain” is.  I mean, you can hit yourself in the face with an ice pick repeatedly and cause pain, while experiencing no demonstrable “gain.”

A related phrase is 苦は楽の種 [くはらくのたね] or “bitterness is the seed of ease.”

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of sharing some nice conversation over a bowl ramen with my friend 朱可利 and one of her friends. During our 4 hour chat, Akari told me that the younger generation of Japanese have adopted using abbreviations in conversation not unlike the ones we see in English (e.g. OMG, LOL, etc.).  These “new” words are called ジャパ造語 or “Japa Coined Words.”

If you’ve been studying Japanese for a while, you might be familiar with CM [commercial], H [Hentai], NG [No Good], GW [Golden Week], or BGM [BackGround Music].  I thought I’d share a few more with y’all.

• JK – 女子高生 [じょしこうせい] – “high school girl”
• JD – 女子大生 [じょしだいせい] – “college girl”
• KY – 空気読めない [くうきよめない] – someone who can’t read the situation (lit. “can’t read the air”

Here are some other fun ones that I found online:

• JY - 状況読めない [じょうきょうよめない] – (see KY)
• IT - アイス、食べたい！ – I want to eat ice cream!
• HR - 一人ランチ – lunch for one
• CZ - チャクラ全開 – someone’s zipper is wide open
• SBN – そんな馬鹿な – such a stupid…
• DSY – 大親友 [だいしんゆう] – similar to BFF in English.
• MHS - マジで・本当に・死んでしまいたい – so desperate, one wants to die

Should you want to investigate some of these newly-coined Japanese words–as long as your Japanese is pretty solid–please check out gengoya.com.

陰口 [かげぐち] – gossip; talking about someone behind their back

• 陰 [イン・かげ] – shade; shadow; secret; yin
• 口 [コウ・くち] – mouth

If you have a secret, shady mouth, you might be talking about people behind their backs.

You’ve like already seen 陰 in the form 陰陽.  In Japanese, it is pronounced いんよう, but you’re probably more likely to recognize it as it’s read in Chinese: Yin/Yang.

辰年 [たつどし] – year of the dragon

• 辰 [シン・たつ] – sign of the dragon
• 年 [ネン・とし] – year

Happy 2012 from nihongo à gogo!

認知症 [にんちしょう] – cognitive impairment; senility; dementia

• 認 [ニン] – acknowledge; recognize
• 知 [チ・しる] – know; wisdom
• 症 [ショウ] – illness

乾坤一擲 [けんこんいってき] - to play for all or nothing; throwing all into a task; to stake everything (on something)

• 乾 [カン] – heaven (also means dry, drought)
• 坤 [コン] – earth
• 一 [いち] – one
• 擲 [テキ] – resign

乾坤 [けんこん] – heaven and earth; universe

一擲 [いってき] – cast off

平衡感覚 [へいこうかんかく] – sense of equilibrium or balance

• 平 [ヘイ・たいら・ひら] – even; flat
• 衡 [コウ] – equilibrium
• 感 [カン] – feeling; sensation
• 覚 [カク・おぼえる] – remember; learn

平衡 [へいこう] – equilibrium; balance

感覚 [かんかく] – sense; feeling

The word in Japanese for “balance beam” (as in gymnastics) is:

平均台 「へいきんだい」

• 平 [ヘイ・たいら・ひら] – even; flat
• 均 [キン] – level; average
• 台 [ダイ] – pedestal; stand