[YuriTokoro]

Hi.
Could someone correct my English?



What “Freeter” Is.

If you write the Japanese word フリーター in English way, that would be “freeter”, and that means a person or people who work part-time.
Once one of my English teachers asked me what “freeter” is.
I wasn’t able to explain that then because it’s really complicated.
Let me try it here.
Freeter is a shorten version of “freearbeiter”.
As you can tell, “free” is from an English word “free”, and “arbeit” is from a German word “arbeiten”(=work).
Then, the last part “er” is the English way to make nouns from a verb. For example, play and player.
Arbeiten is pronounced arubaito in Japan, which means part time job(s). The origin is that medical students used to say they “arbeiten” when they cut corpses to study human bodies. They meant it was a hard work. Japanese medical students study the German language because early Japanese medical information was from German. This word had spread and been changed the meaning into part time jobs.
Anyway, “arbeiter” means “part time worker” here.
You know, there is a problem. Does “a free part time worker” works without salary? Unfortunately, no.
In this context, “free” means “not permanent position” here.
Many young people can’t get permanent positions recently and they become freeter. You might think “free” can imply fun, but these people have instability. They can earn little.
This is a big problem Japan has. I guess your country might be so, too.

Thank you.