Foul language (Advanced): Common swear words and phrases

💬 てめえ is a rough, slurred version of 手前 (temae). The original was a humble word for oneself, but it flipped into a hostile word for "you".

🇯🇵 Some men use お前 with close friends or juniors without meaning offense. From a stranger, or toward someone senior, it reads as aggressive. Most Japanese people avoid saying "you" at all and use the person's name instead.

💬 こいつ follows the same pattern as こ・そ・あ words: そいつ "that guy (near you)" and あいつ "that guy over there". All three are rough ways to refer to people.

🇯🇵 死ね is one of the most severe things you can say in Japanese. It's far heavier than a casual English "drop dead", and it is taken seriously in schools and workplaces.

💬 消えろ is the blunt command form of 消える "to disappear", so it literally says "vanish!".

💬 Adding な after the plain dictionary form of a verb makes a blunt "don't!". Another example is 触るな "don't touch!".

💬 In rough speech, る before な slurs into ん, so ふざけるな becomes ふざけんな (fuzakenna). That clipped sound is what makes it rougher.

💬 なめる literally means "to lick". It's used here in the sense of "to look down on / underestimate".

💬 野郎 (yarō) means roughly "guy / bastard" and adds punch to an insult. In rough speech it's often slurred to (bakayarō) or even (bakkyarō).

🇯🇵 Rebellious teenagers stereotypically say this about their own father or grandfather, and you'll hear it often in anime. Saying it about a real stranger would be very rude.

💬 Adding よ to the end of a sentence pushes it at the listener and gives it an edge. Plain なんだ is just "what is it", while なんだよ sounds irritated.

💬 やってん is a squashed form of やっている "are doing". Casual speech often shrinks 〜ている to 〜てる or 〜てん.

🇯🇵 Said sharply, 何だと？ is a challenge, like a confrontational "What did you just say?". You'll mostly hear it in dramas and right before an argument escalates.

💬 Ending with じゃないの？ with a rising tone turns a statement into a pointed "isn't it obvious?". The same pattern works elsewhere, as in 変じゃないの？ "isn't that weird?".

🇯🇵 マジで is very common casual slang among young people and isn't rude in itself. Still, avoid it with bosses or in formal settings, where 本当に "really" fits instead.

💬 Casual Japanese often leaves out は and any verb ending. Just a topic, a pause, and a describing word make a full sentence.

💬 Adding ないで to a verb makes a soft "please don't". For example, 言わないで means "don't say" and 見ないで means "don't look". It's much gentler than the blunt 〜な form.