Unless you go to high school in Japan, your chances of learning young-people slang are pretty low.

Your textbooks won't use it.

Even if you practice "casual language" with a teacher, they won't teach you the slang that young people are using. In a lot of cases, they won't even know or understand a lot of the slang that young people are using!

It's fascinating to me that young people all over the world like to take the language that they've been taught and somehow make it their own... but figuring out what's going on in a foreign language is, well... challenging.

---

Slang Used by Young Japanese People

If you were a Japanese person in your mid-twenties right now, you'd likely be familiar with all of the following slang terms...

---

鬼 (＝ 超 ＝ super-)

An 鬼 (おに) is a type of Japanese monster (Wikipedia):

As slang, this can be used like the prefix 超 (ちょう), which means something like "super-" or "ultra-."

An example:

これ鬼かわいくない？？
これ　おに　かわいくない？？
Isn’t this super cute?
Literally: “this + oni + isn’t cute??”

---

Woo!

When you're out with all of your young hooligan friends, and things are getting wild, you can yell:

あげぽよ～！
あげぼよ～！
Agepoyo~! // Woo!
Literally: “[no meaning]”

This means pretty much nothing. It's likely that the あげ is 上げ, the "lift" or "rise" of the situation's テンション.

The Japanese word for "tension," テンション, has a different meaning than the English, though. This テンション is the spirit or energy of a scene. For example, a nightclub has high テンション.

---

とりま

とりま is an abbreviation of とりあえずまぁ, meaning "for now, well..."

For example, it could be used like this:

とりまマック行く？
とりま　マック　いく？
Wanna go to McDonald’s for now?
Literally: “for now, well... + McDonald’s + go?”
Note: In Tokyo, young people often hang out at McDonald's.

Rei told me that when she was younger, she said とりま about 20,000 times per day.

---

神（かみ）

神 (かみ) means "god" in Japanese.

As slang, it can mean something like "the shit." That is, it refers to something that is amazing, fantastic, the best, etc.

このアプリまじ神だよ。
この　アプリ　まじ　かみ　だ　よ。
This app is the shit.
Literally: “this + app + seriously + god + だ + よ.”

Of the slang in this lesson, this is one of the ones that I hear the most often. But maybe I'm just out of touch with young people, and they're actually using different phrases more often.

---

それな (＝Yeah, right? // Yeah, seriously.)

Last year Rei and I went to Jeju, South Korea for a family gathering. In addition to her mom, her aunt, uncle, and three cousins went with us too.

Two of her cousins, both in their early twenties, were saying それな all the time.

An example:

A:
あーお腹空いた。
あー　おなか　すいた。
Ah, I’m hungry.
Literally: “ahh + stomach + got empty.”

B:
それな。
それな。
Yeah, seriously.
Literally: “that + な.”

Or here's another example:

A:
えっもう10時？！はやっ。
えっ　もう　じゅうじ？！　はやっ。
What? It’s already 10? That was fast.
Literally: “huh + already + 10 o’clock?! + (very) fast.”

B:
それな。
それな。
Yeah, right?
Literally: “that + な.”

---

Even if you were a native Japanese speaker in your mid-twenties, you might not know this latest and greatest young-people slang:

フロリダ

When I first saw this, I thought... Florida?

Now, I've never heard someone use this one, but apparently it's something that young people these days often write when messaging one another.

The way it's used is awesome: You say フロリダ when you want to tell someone that you'll be away from your phone for a while because you're going to take a bath/shower.

Specifically, it means:

風呂入るからちょっと離脱するね
ふろ　はいる　から　ちょっと　りだつ　する　ね。
I’m gonna go take a bath [shower]. I’ll be back in a bit.
Literally: “bath + enter + because + a little bit + withdrawal / separation + do + ね.”

風呂（ふろ // bath）＋ 離脱（りだつ // withdrawal）＝ 風呂離脱 (ふろりだつ // withdrawing to take a bath) → フロリダ

---

Some say that young people's slang is an abomination. It destroys the way language is "supposed to be!"

Others argue that it's natural for a language to evolve.

I go back and forth. In any case, I want to learn it all.

＜（〇_〇）＞