Thursday 15 September 2011

Word of the day じんじん(と)

Hey! So whenever I hear a word that is new to me at school or otherwise, I'm going to start noting it down here so that I (and you diligent learners of Japanese) can come back and reference them.

So without further ado:

じんじん A "と adverb" (an adverb that must be followed with と+verb)
Meaning: tingling sensation, painful tingle, throb etc. ALSO ringing of the ears

So today, one of the students came into the school office complaining of an injured arm. The school nurse asked her something like:
どういうふうに痛むか? --> Literally: In what style does it hurt?  --> Most naturally: What sort of pain are you feeling?
The response by the student was じんじんとする!痛いよ~

So there we go. In my formative (and shamefully, in my not so formative) clubbing years, I could certainly have used this expression to express the state of my poor ears following the many drum n bass, techno etc. parties I have been to. So, invest in ear plugs otherwise 耳がまさに、じんじんと痛むよ~

Cheers and study hard!

1 comment:

  1. haha, but i could be the case that only kids would use this phase.

    ReplyDelete