Japanese One Point Lesson: なう
Welcome to the first in what I hope will become a long-running series on this site - Japanese One Point Lessons! Today’s lesson is an obscure and fairly recent bit of Japanese I discovered on Twitter - the word なう (Nau).
I take no credit for discovering this, as it baffled me too for the longest time. Every now and then, one of the few Japanese-speakers I follow on Twitter would mysteriously finish their sentence with なう. What could it be? I thought. Probably some weird old way of speaking… I just hadn’t come across it yet in my linguistic explorations, right?
I finally cracked and tweeted the question to an interesting Japanese-language twitterer named @gin_no_hera. He tells me it essentially means: 今〜している (I’m doing [something] now). He also linked me to Sushi, Sumo and Shinkansen which has a post on it. Apparently it was invented on Twitter, although another of my followers claims it dates back into 2-chan territory. Anyone know for sure?
So, let’s take a look at some examples! And what better place to find them than Twitter itself? Using Twitter Search:
- yamkozawa: (Listening to) Ikimonogakari now
- hanizo: Now working
- marsfield2122: (On the) Chuo-line now
Easy right? You’ll notice that often the verb is implied. Nothing new there then. Let’s look at some harder examples:
- ch1cala: (Playing) Rock-Paper-Scissors at Shinbashi now
- Sho5onthewell: It’s a pain to have to change my trousers, so right now I’m on the sofa in just my underwear trying not to laugh (mobile phone)
- eaurouge_spa: Leaving Machida now
- terapicos: Now (watching) ‘A Certain Forbidden Catalog of Black Magic’ (Anime)
What a weird tweet Sho5onthewell!? But crazy-interesting Japanese! Looks like this became a two-point lesson (I’ve already broken my rules on the first time!)
パンモロ ＝ パンツがもろに見える ＝ Can completely see one’s underwear. (A quick Google Image search will verify this - but don’t say I didn’t warn you!)
Apparently もろに means something like すっかり. Here’s Hard Gay (HG) to demonstrate…
Well, that’s all for today!
ワンポイントレッソン終了！！
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