When learning Japanese, I found myself fascinated by words or phrases that were completely unlike what existed in English. For example, there’s a class of single-word phrases which, for some reason, have many possible translation paths in English, making them challenging (but fun) to use. First there’s yahari (alternately, yappari), which you use to express your own expectations about something, roughly equivalent to “I knew it” or “just as I expected.” When someone tells you something that you didn’t know, you can use naruhodo (nah-roo-ho-doh), which means “I see” or “that’s news to me.” If you watch an hour of anime in Japanese, you’ll likely hear the phrase masaka (mah-sah-kah) at least once, usually said by a shocked character — it just means “it can’t be!” or “you’ve got to be joking!” Finally there’s a great word to pull out when you want to praise someone: sasuga (SAH-soo-gah), which roughly means “I always knew you were incredible!” So if you have a friend or coworker named Yamada-san who does something good, hit him with “Sasuga, Yamada-san!” and know that you’ve made his day.
