Quote:
Originally Posted by YuriTokoro
Hi.
Could someone correct my English?
What “Freeter” Is.
If you write the Japanese word フリーター in English, 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 hard work. Japanese medical students studied German because early Japanese medical information was from Germany. This word spread and over time has been changed to mean 'part time work'.
Anyway, “arbeiter” means “part time worker” here.
You know, there is a problem. Does “a free part time worker” work without salary? Unfortunately, no.
In this context, “free” means “without 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.
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"They meant it was hard work" is slightly ambiguous. "hard work" usually means tiring activity. Climbing a mountain is hard work. Being a farmer is hard work. However, i'm not sure if you mean 'hard' here as 'difficult' though. 'Difficult' work can be a job that is unlikeable or unpleasant to do, is complicated or involves a lot of risk. Being a doctor is difficult work, being a bomb expert is difficult work.
I could have put 'no' instead of 'without', but 'without' fits more with the formal language of describing work status.