What does 'setsunai' mean to you?
 

Dictionary translation aside - so I'm talking to people who lived/live in Japan and understand the word without looking it up.

Have you felt setsunasa? Is this common in your country or a peculiar Japanese feeling?

"Setsunai" or "Setsunasa"?

The difference is slight, but you are asking two different questions.

Whichever word form. Even 'setsunaku' is OK. A friend into Jpop asked me about the word since it pops up in songs a lot.

For those who don't know what the word means. its means "very sad because of helplessness" or "crushed by something and not being able to change the situation".

It sounds a bit like the kind of situation I would describe as "being caught between a rock and a hard place". I can't think of a particular word for the emotion though.

Yeah, I'd say that's a good discription.

Just that I think we Japanese use it a lot. I never here too many American songs say "rock and a hard place" though it might be implied.

I wonder if Japanese society creates more situations for setsunai feeling to occur?

Mmm, true. I can't think of any songs that use the expression. I think it is a lot more implied rather than just said outright, but I don't listen to enough music to really know. Song-writing seems to go through trends though, so maybe it is true that setsunai resonates with a lot of people in Japan at the moment. Could be the reverse; that elsewhere people just don't feel sad or helpless in the same kinds of situations. Like maybe a Japanese song writer might put something like "The girl I love doesn't love me, setsunai", whereas an American songwriter might put...i don't know, "B**** won't love me!" *laughs*

:D rofl

I have this cousin, a few years back he wanted to get married to the girl he loved in college. But the parents of the girl refused unless he dropped his last name to take theirs and come take over the family business. He went to University to become a pharmacist and didn't want to give up his last name. The marriage got cancelled. It was a very setsunai episode in my cousins life.

That's really harsh. :< Well, by my standards anyway. Is that particularly common, or did your cousin just fall into an unusually difficult situation? My friend had a similar experience, come to think of it. They weren't engaged but her boyfriend, who she really loved, couldn't accept her (admittedly very complicated) family. She couldn't very well ditch her family, but there were fundamental problems between her mother and her boyfriend that neither party could overcome, so the relationship fell apart in the end. It was pretty sad. Neither wanted it, but well... there you go.

Yes, that's like setsunai. i think setsunai for Japanese isn't a physical brick wall in most cases. Instead, its social circumstance that cannot be over come or ignored. Like in your friend or my cousins case, if one of the three parties, boy,girl or family, stood down, everything would be OK. But, socially, we can't ask our families to stand down(up to a point). Girl can't break her bond with family, boy can't learn to accept her family. There is nothing that can be done.

My cousins fiance was an adopted child. Her parents adopted her for the sole purpose that she carry on the family Inn because they could not make any children of their own. She was allowed to go off to college not only to learn, but also that she might meet someone and bring back a husband that would take over the family business with her. That was her parents plan. She met my cousin in college but he had plans for his own future. He wanted her to run away with him, but she couldn't disrespect the parents that cared for her so she broke off the marriage.

TBH, I'm starting to question your own Japanese knowledge here. ;)

That would not be described with the word せつない by the majority of Japanese-speakers. The situation is just way too heavy to call せつない.

せつない has a much lighter (and often poetic) feel to it. It isn't used for a tragedy.

NOTE: In case the people involved in this incident or those who have heard the story don't feel it's as tragic and distressful as I'm feeling, they might use the word to describe it.

Have you guys heard the song "miss you" by M-flo? I like that song because it has a lot of implementation of "interlanguage" which is something that a lot of study abroad students and I used a lot of. I got into m-flo when I started getting serious about learning Japanese... I really wasn't a big fan of that kind of music to begin with, but I started to like it after a while and I've really come to appreciate the language that they use.

One of the great things about interlanguage is that it allows for usage of words or feelings that you wouldn't be able to express in your L2. It is my opinion that some words or feelings are just easier to express in some languages. The phrase "miss you" just works better in English. At the same time, words like "せつない" or "なつかしい" or other things like that work better in Japanese.

^ M-Flo "Miss you" with Ryohei and Melody. I love the PV.

Yeah, a simple 'miss you' in Japanese doesn't translate will. It can be expressed like Aitakata but not exactly the same. Likewise, is there a single English word for natsukashi, umami, gambarimashyo or mendou kusai?

Each language reveals something about the people.

Here's how I've seen/heard them dealt with. Generally, there's not one single word.

なつかしい- nostalgic. Only difference is that english speakers don't go "ah, nostalgic," when they hear something なつかしい in quite the same way that Japanese speakers do.

うまみ- savory. This seems to make more sense to some American English speakers, as British English speakers use 'savory' as a general taste term more frequently.

がんばりましょ- Do your best. We just don't really use it quite as often, or for such varied situations as it is in Japanese.

めんどくさい- *laughs* If I had to condense it to one word, it'd probably be 'arse'. As in めんどくさいな "I can't be arsed." But then if the situation is that something is being troublesome (仕事はめんどくさいよ) you're more likely to say "a pain in the arse". So there is a differentiation.

So there are English words for each, yet they aren't really used in the same way in English. Specially the last two. Can you imagine telling an American, "Try your best". It's almost an insult. The guy would ask, "What did you think I was going to do? Do a half ass job?!". We Japanese use mendou kusai so much I wonder if we aren't the lazy ones at heart :D ?

If you flip open a dictionary there will always be something there for words. This word = that word. It's hardly reality... and it's often misleading for learners. Chiuchimu is right, you wouldn't really use those types of words in the same way in either language. You don't hear people saying "nostaligic!" when they see some old thing they used to like. It might be a nostalgic movie or toy or whatever, but you wouldn't call it that outloud in the present tense, so to speak. You don't hear people voice things like "おつかれ" or "おさきに" or "ビビッタ！" as much in English. Going into the world of 擬態語 will reveal a whole other realm of language that just doesn't exist in English (with a few exceptions if you look hard enough I'm sure).

I'm gonna stray a little bit and go as far as to say that I've heard people say that Japanese is a culture of holding back expression etc etc zen peace yadayadayada. While that might be true on some levels, I think there are many areas language wise that allows a Japanese person to really let out what they're feeling more so than English speakers. The opposite is also true of course, but I find myself trying to say a certain Japanese word that I use in English more so than trying to say a certain English word I know in Japanese. It could just be a result of me using Japanese more than English though too.

Yeah, we use things quite differently, even if we can translate it! I still might say "do your best" to a friend who was worried about an exam or something though, and I don't think that would be odd. It's easy to get confused between American English and British English uses of words too. I used to get so annoyed at my American friends when they'd say "Oh, I'm sorry," after telling them bad news. I kept thinking "Why are you apologizing? It's got nothing to do with you!" but it's just how some Americans like to express sympathy.

Amongst some of my japanese-speaking friends, even if we're speaking english, we don't bother to translate some Japanese words like 'genki' any more. It just makes more sense left in Japanese.

Yes, like 'Chan' "Momokochanwa do?" Vs "Momokosanwa dodesuka?"
Then, English has two wonderful word 'you' and 'I'. In Japan you have to use the correct form of 'you' or 'I' or it comes off sounding wrong. A lot of older first generation Japanese-Americans speak in Japanese but use 'you' or 'I'. like, " YOUwa ne, mochoto..."



Yeah that new post amazed me. I didn't think about the real world difference of American Vs British English. In America, the 'sorry' stems from the phrase "I'm sorry for your lose". now, its shorten to 'sorry'. Instead of an apology, it means an expression of sorrow here in the U.S. Is "sorry' used mostly for apologies in the U.K.?

Among my Japanese-American friends, we speak in English. but a lot of Japanese words get thrown in too! Like genki, arigato, iyada, ganbare, ikuzo, oishii, umai, chikushou, etc...

Yes. If I were to say "My boyfriend dumped me yesterday (TnT) ", my American friends might say "I'm sorry," but all my British friends would say something different, like "Oh how awful," or "Oh no! What happened? Are you alright?". *laughs* If one of them said "I'm sorry," I'd probably ask "Why, what did you do?!"

A lot of my friends are Japanese-language students, so we muddle Japanese up with english as well, "Come on guys, we're late! Let's get ikimashou-ing!"

Yea Columbine... I never knew how different British English was from American English until having conversations with English people in Japan. Let's just say we spend a lot of our time making fun of each other.

chiuchimu, not to ask too much 個人情報, but whereabouts in southern CA are you? I'm from that area so... I wonder if we know some of the same people :eek:

せつない is a cliche for me. I don't recall me actually thinking 「せつねえ…」 or something like that in real life. I'll be more like 「つれえ…（辛い）」or 「胸が苦しい…」.

「懐かしい」 on the other hand is a word that frequently pops up in my mind and I don't have a good translation for. Yeah, I can say "nostalgic" but it isn't the same...

I was in Japan last week and there was this guy walking in front of me with his hip swinging right and left like he was cat walking. The word popped up in my mind was 「プリッ！プリッ！」. I don't have a good translation for that ether.

The Progressive form of 'Ikimashou', that ones new to me!:D


I'm in the Valley, specifically Sylmar.




People breaking up, not being able to marry or not be to be together are well within common use of 'setsunai'. I would NOT use setsunai if someone was dying of cancer.

Just to make sure it wasn't simply my personal diction, I asked around at my work. They all agreed that nothing is wrong with describing my cousins situation as setsunai, from a first person, second person or third person point of view.

double posted. delete