Emotions in Japanese: Your Expressive Journey

Expressing emotions and feelings in Japanese often involves specific vocabulary, phrases, and cultural nuances different from English or other languages. Here are some key points and common expressions:

Common Japanese Words for Emotions and Feelings

• うれしい (ureshii): happy, glad
• かなしい (kanashii): sad
• こわい (kowai): scared
• いらいらする (iraira suru): irritated
• たのしい (tanoshii): enjoyable, fun
• おこる (okoru): angry
• しあわせ (shiawase): happiness, bliss
• あいしてる (aishiteru): I love you (intense emotional expression)

Ways to Express Emotions

• Using adjectives with です (desu) for politeness:
  私はうれしいです。 (Watashi wa ureshii desu.) — I am happy.
• Using the verb なる (naru, “to become”):
  悲しくなる (kanashiku naru) — to become sad.
• Using 〜たい (~tai) form to express desire related to feelings:
  会いたい (aitai) — I want to see you (conveys longing).
• Interjections or emotive particles (kandoushi) to express spontaneous feelings: ええ (ee, surprise), ああ (aa, realization), やった (yatta, joy/excitement).

Cultural Notes

• Japanese often express feelings indirectly or with subtlety compared to Western languages.
• Emotional expressions can be context-dependent and may rely on non-verbal cues.
• Words like 感動 (kandou) describe deep emotional or moving experiences.
• There are multiple near-equivalents to “happy” in Japanese with subtle differences, such as うれしい (ureshii), たのしい (tanoshii), and しあわせ (shiawase).

Examples of Emotional Phrases

• 悲しい気持ちです。 (Kanashii kimochi desu.) — I feel sad.
• あなたが恋しい。 (Anata ga koishii.) — I miss you (literally: I long for you).
• 楽しい時間をありがとう。 (Tanoshii jikan o arigatou.) — Thank you for the fun time.
• 怒っています。 (Okotte imasu.) — I am angry.

These expressions and cultural insights provide a good foundation for communicating emotions and feelings in Japanese with appropriate respect and nuance.

References

• Love, Hate and Everything in Between: Expressing Emotions in Japanese

• Placing the face in context: cultural differences in the perception of facial emotion.

• KANDOUSHI PADA TUTURAN PELANGGAN DALAM SERIAL DRAMA IZAKAYA BOTTAKURI

• Imparting Otsukaresama: Designing Technology to Support Interpersonal Emotion Regulation

• Applying the concept of “Moe” to designing robot’s appearances

• Cultural Computing - Creative Power Integrating Culture, Unconsciousness and Software

• Cultural Computing - How Can Technology Contribute the Spiritual Aspect of Our Communication?

• On Deng Tuo’s Poetry and Ci

• Conceptualization of “happy-like” feelings in Japanese and its relevance to a semantic typology of emotion concepts

• Linguistic means of expressing emotionality in English and Japanese

• JVNV: A Corpus of Japanese Emotional Speech with Verbal Content and Nonverbal Expressions

• JNV Corpus: A Corpus of Japanese Nonverbal Vocalizations with Diverse Phrases and Emotions

• A Contrastive Analysis of Emotive Interjection (Kandoushi) in Japanese and Indonesian

• Uncovering the essence of moving experiences in Japanese culture: Development and validation of a kando reaction scale

• A review of psychological research on kando as an inclusive concept of moving experiences

• Facial Expressions of Basic Emotions in Japanese Laypeople

• Varieties of wh-exclamatives: A view from the negative wh-expressives in Japanese

• Cross-Cultural Differences in the Processing of Non-Verbal Affective Vocalizations by Japanese and Canadian Listeners

• Facial Expressions of Basic Emotions in Japanese Laypeople

• Emotive or Non-emotive: That is The Question