Joe Townsend
How to explain the meaning of 'cheesy' (or 'corny') to Japanese friends? When talking in English to Japanese friends, I sometimes use the word 'cheesy' to describe something, before forgetting that it's a word a lot of them don't know! I find that it's really, really difficult to explain what it means using simple English, and I can never find a Japanese translation which quite captures the same feeling. If there is anybody Japanese out there who understands the word, please provide one (or both!) of the following: 1) A close Japanese translation or translations 2) A sentence in Japanese that you would use to explain the concept to another Japanese person. It's not really that important a word I guess, but this issue has been bugging me for a long time! N.B. Some people might use the word 'corny' to mean the same thing!
Sep 28, 2014 4:01 PM
Answers · 4
1
Definitely 安っぽい in conversation, and 陳腐 (ちんぷ) in writing. The literal meaning of 安っぽい is "cheap", but the word is applicable to many cases as follows. あの映画は安っぽかった: The speaker is of course not talking about the budget of the movie but of the quality for some reasons. あの人は安っぽい: Maybe he is too shallow, or showy-offy, or just dumb.
September 29, 2014
I think this online dicctionary / translator is better than the google one and has some examples. However, since it's for Japanese people, it seems sentences are difficult with kanji. Please take a look at this site. http://ejje.weblio.jp
September 28, 2014
It depends on the context, it would be translated as 安っぽい[やすっぽい]、古くさい[ふるくさい]、つまらない、うそっぽい, etc. All means something negative, as you know, but in Japanese, there are small defferences between each word.
September 28, 2014
I forgot to clarify: I'm obviously not talking about 'cheesy' as in 'tastes like cheese'! I'm talking about 'cheesy' in the context of cheesy music, cheesy films, cheesy phrases, etc. :)
September 28, 2014
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