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What might this Japanese word/phrase I keep hearing mean? Sounds like わりわり. When I am watching Japanese movies, tv programmes etc I keep hearing people say the same two words. As it is spoken not writen I'm not sure on the spelling but it sounds like they say wari wari, maybe わりわり. It sounds like it always comes at the beginning of a sentance, maybe some sort of conjunction? Turning on the subtitles doesnt help as each time they say something different. So i cant find a pattern through the translations that works either and looking up the word in a dictonary gave me no sensible result either. Im guessing it is a very native way of saying something, all I know really is it appears to be a very high frequency word
May 20, 2010 3:17 PM
Answers · 5
2
It is short for "わるい わるい". (warui warui) they are actually saying "わりー わりー"(wari- wari-) It means, "sorry sorry". =) By the way, warui(わるい) or wari-(わりー ) means “bad” in Japanese. So they are saying “bad bad” but this is a common Japanese expression.
May 20, 2010
1
PS: ”わるい わるい” and ”わりー わりー” are both masculine expression. Female would usually say "ごめん ごめん" instead...
May 21, 2010
Are you sure it wasn't われわれ (我々), "we"? It's pretty common (and is often at the beginning of a sentence)
May 21, 2010
Yes, I guess it should be わりーわりー。 Do they say it, for example, they came late to the meeting? Another possibility I thought up is おわりおわり。 It literally means "end end" meaning something like "Let's not speak about that anymore." or "Ok we are done." But わりーわり- looks more promising.
May 21, 2010
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