The other day, Rei and I headed out to the west of Tokyo to meet with my editor's family for a cherry blossom BBQ.

Yes, it was beautiful. And delicious.

First we met up at Haijima Station, which is on the Ome Line:

As you can see it's pretty far from central Tokyo. We were basically sitting on the train for half of the day.

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Calling the Help-Hand Seat

(I don't know why, but I see an abnormally large number of cars shaped like this in Japan.)

Yutaka (my editor) picked us up in his car. So there we are--Yutaka, Rei, and I--and we're walking to the car. Like any sane individual, I promptly call shotgun (well, also because I doubt Rei wants to sit up front and chat with Yutaka when they've only met once before).

Yutaka is really, really good at English. So I ask him if he knows what "shotgun" means.

Nope.

But...

I don't know the Japanese equivalent, either. Being a studious individual, I asked how I would say that.

The first answer I got--people don't really fight over the front seat.

Uh... but let's say someone does want the front seat?

That would probably be:

私助手席乗っていい？
わたし　じょしゅせき　のって　いい？
Mind if I sit in the front? // Is it OK if I sit in the front?
Literally: "I + passenger seat + ride (て-form) + good?"
Note: The verb 乗る（のる）, while technically meaning "to get on; to board," can also mean "to ride." It has like a million meanings, actually.

Another, less polite option would be:

俺助手席乗る！
おれ　じょしゅせき　のる！
I call front seat! // I'm gonna sit in the front!
Literally: "I + passenger seat + ride!"
Note: I chose 俺（おれ）this time for "I," but just to show we can use lots of different words for "I." Also, because I never say 私（わたし）. I say 俺（おれ） with friends and close family (i.e. 90% of my conversations) and 僕（ぼく） when I'm trying to be polite (i.e. in polite situations; e.g. with Yutaka's family).

Pretty simple, yeah? Since we're using casual Japanese, we're leaving out particles, subjects, and all of that headache-inducing madness for a nice, natural-sounding sentence.

But it can get even simpler:

あたし助手席。
あたし　じょしゅせき。
I call front seat. // I'm in the front.
Literally: "I + passenger seat."
Note: あたし is only for girls. You can use it in casual sentences.

Now, for a confession: I didn't know this word 助手席（じょしゅせき / passenger seat）. Shock & shame abound, yes.

If I look at it, of course, I know the meaning, and I could probably even guess it's reading:

助 help
手 hand
席 seat

The skilled second language learner, however, knows that we can use different words to express things in 99% of cases. And this is no exception. If we wanted, we could switch out 助手席（じょしゅせき / passenger seat）with 前（まえ / front）. Like this:

私前乗っていい？
わたし　まえ　のって　いい？
Mind if I sit in the front? // Is it OK if I sit in the front?
Literally: "I + front/before + ride (て-form) + good?"

俺前乗る！
おれ　まえ　のる！
I call front seat! // I'm gonna sit in the front!
Literally: "I + front/before + ride!"

あたし前。
あたし　まえ。
I call front seat. // I'm in the front.
Literally: "I + front/before."
Note: Since we don't have a verb like 乗る（のる） or a clear and specific word like 助手席（じょしゅせき）, this sentence is highly dependent on context. It must be painfully obvious to the listener that the "front" you're referring to is the front of the car. In such a case, it's no problem as a sentence.

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Shotgun Weddings

All this talk about shotgun reminded Yutaka of a phrase he'd heard before: "shotgun wedding."

How in the world he knows this English is beyond me, but he went on to ask me if it's something that native speakers actually say in English.

I wasn't too sure about how to answer this one. Yes, it's a phrase I know, and I've heard it before. But have I ever used it?

I told him that he's not likely to hear it much, if ever. But I have heard it, so that means that it is being used by native speakers in some way, even if only in dated stories and/or jokes.

So what, then, is "shotgun wedding" in Japanese?

Yutaka said that it's:

出来ちゃった婚
できちゃった　こん
shotgun wedding; marriage due to unexpected pregnancy

But then he went on to say that he hasn't heard this term for years, so he's not sure if people actually say it.

Interestingly enough, I've heard a derivative of this term before:

出来婚
できこん
shotgun wedding; marriage due to unexpected pregnancy

At first, he said, I don't think people say that. Then he turns to Rei in the backseat and asks, "Do you think people say that?"

She's like, "Yeah, I hear it a fair amount."

And I can second that I've heard native speakers talking about their... uh... acquaintances who may or may not have participated in 出来婚（できこん）.

I thought it was so interesting, because we can see how, in a mere 15-20 year gap (the age gap between Yutaka and Rei), one word has evolved into another: 出来ちゃった婚 → 出来婚.

That's crazy!

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Wait a sec... people 出来る babies?

出来る（できる）is an awesome word.

Technically, 出来る（できる）is the potential form of the verb する, "to do." In other words, 出来る（できる）means "to be able to do."

This is why you can say things like:

料理出来るよ。
りょうり　できる　よ。
I can cook.
Literally: "cooking + can do + よ."
Note: Here, よ is adding emphasis and has the nuance that the speaker is either defending their ability to cook or maybe showing off a bit.

But 出来る（できる）is also a lot broader than this. And it can mean a variety of things, one of which is "to (be able to) make."

For example, imagine you're baking a cheesecake. You don't know all that much about baking cakes, but you're still giving it your all like the amazing person that you are. Then, boom! It turns out perfectly. This is when you announce:

上手に出来た！
じょうず　に　できた！
It turned out great!
Literally: "skillfully + was able to do/make."
Note: We would know that the speaker is talking about, for example, the cake that they made... because it's probably sitting right in front of them when they say this.

In a somewhat similar way, when you 出来る（できる）a child, it means that you're pregnant. Like this:

子供出来た。
こども　できた。
I'm pregnant.
Literally: "child + was able to make."

Once the child is born, the mother might say:

子供産んだ。
こども　うんだ。
I had a baby.
Literally: "child + gave birth."
Note: Actually, the father could say this, too.

If you're the father, you might say:

子供生まれた。
こども　うまれた。
I had a baby.
Literally: "child + was born."

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Oops... I was able to make a baby...

At some point in your studies, you'll have to learn about how adding しまう to the end of て-form verbs can mean "finished VERB-ing" or "VERB-ed (though I didn't intend to). (All by itself, しまう means to "to finish; to close; to put away.")

The version of this you might hear most often is with 忘れる（わすれる / to forget）. So...

財布忘れてしまいました。
さいふ　わすれて　しまいました。
I forgot my wallet.
Literally: "wallet + forget (て-form) + did completely."

That sounds mad formal, though. Let's make it a bit more casual:

財布忘れてしまった。
さいふ　わすれて　しまった。
I forgot my wallet.
Literally: "wallet + forget (て-form) + did completely."

Even more casually:

財布忘れちゃった。
さいふ　わすれちゃった。
I forgot my wallet.
Literally: "wallet + forgot (oops)."
Note: ～てしまう, in casual sentences, gets shortened to ～ちゃう, and in past tense that's ～ちゃった.

This ～ちゃった is what we're seeing in:

出来ちゃった婚
できちゃったこん
shotgun wedding; marriage due to unexpected pregnancy

Oh, and this 婚 means "marriage." The word for "wedding / marriage" is 結婚（けっこん）. Similarly, the word for "(wedding) engagement" is 婚約（こんやく）, literally "marriage-promise."

Over time, this apparently got shortened to 出来婚（できこん）... even if the older and middle-aged generations haven't realized it yet.

I wonder what kind of things they'll be saying in another twenty years from now...