How to express Personality and Feelings in Japanese : We Japanese people enjoy expressing our the others personalities and own feelings just like any other people do in other countries.
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How to express Personality and Feelings in Japanese
Hey guys, how is it going? Today we are going to be talking all about feelings in Japanese. As well as learning a bunch of new words, we are also going to be learning some really useful phrases you can use to talk about personalities too.
This is such an important lesson because it is integral that you are able to express how you feel in conversation. Without the inclusion of feelings and emotion you will never be able to progress forward to a deeper level of connection and relationship with others.
We are first going to start by looking at a MONSTER vocabulary list to ensure that you are full loaded with all the right words needed to express yourself properly.
Take a look at this list and highlight the words that you don’t know. Once you have done that you can go ahead and put them into an anki or flash card system to really help you remember them effectively and efficiently
Here are a list of traits that you can use to describe someone both physically and mentally.
personalities in Japanese
| Personality | Japanese |
| Smart | かしこい、頭（あたま）がいい |
| Dumb | ばか、頭（あたま）が悪（わる）い |
| Diligent | 真面目（まじめ） |
| Lazy | 怠（なま）け者（もの） |
| Cute | 可愛（かわい）い |
| Cool | かっこいい |
| Sexy | セクシー |
| Beautiful | 綺麗（きれい） |
| Kind | 優（やさ）しい |
| Mean | いじわる |
| Polite | しんせつ、礼儀（れいぎ）正（ただ）しい |
| Rude | 無礼（ぶれい） |
| Shy | 恥（はず）ずかしがり |
| Selfish | わがまま |
| Honest | 正直（しょうじき） |
| Liar | 嘘（うそ）つき |
| Fat | 太（ふと）い |
| Thin | 細（ほそ）い |
| Normal | 普通（ふつう） |
This is a really good list of adjectives to add to your arsenal as it will really help you open up your language ability and add some colour / variation to your communication ability. You can use these when you are describing not only humans, but animals too.
Try to practice by thinking of 5 friends and pets that you are close to and try to describe them with the words from the list that you have just learnt. Doing this practically will really help you get much better with your speaking ability in Japanese too.
Now that we have talked about some personality vocabulary in Japanese, we need to look at ways to express feelings. These could be emotions of sadness, joy, jealousy or empathy.
Tapping into this type of vocabulary will ensure that you can connect with you conversation partner on a deeper level. You should often try to ask how other people are feeling and also express how you feel yourself, as this is what makes us human.
So here is a great list of feeling that you can use to express yourself in Japanese. Much like in the previous list, you should highlight the words that you don’t know and focus on those. This will help you digest and master the list much quicker.
A list of the feelings
| Feeling | Japanese |
| Angry | 怒（おこ）った |
| Nervous | 緊張（きんちょう）した |
| Sad | 悲（かな）しい |
| Sad | 寂（さび/さみ）しい |
| Fun | 楽（たの）しい |
| Happy | 嬉（うれ）しい |
| Scared | 怖（こわ）い |
| Tired | 疲（つか）れた |
| Feel good | 気持（きも）ちいい |
| Feel bad | 気持ち悪（わる）い |
| Happy | 幸（しあわ）せ |
| Bored | 退屈（たいくつ） |
| Scared | 怯（おび）えた |
| Excited | 興奮（こうふん）した |
| Feel alive | 生（い）き生きした |
| Surprised | 驚（おどろ）いた |
| Satisfied | 満足（まんぞく）した |
| Busy | 忙（いそが）しい |
| Have nothing to do | 暇（ひま） |
| Worried | 心配（しんぱい）した |
| Surprised | びっくりした |
| Calm | 落（お）ち着（つ）いた |
| Be in a hurry | 急（いそ）いでいる |
| To miss someone/something | 恋（こい）しい |
What an incredibly useful list of “feeling” vocabulary that you can use to express your anger, sadness, happiness, gratitude and so forth. This list is especially important to practice with as it will unlock a new level of conversation for you.
Start by thinking of how you feel when doing certain actions, some that you love, and some that you hate, and try to describe them. This will help you get used to using the vocabulary.
Before we move onto the adverb portion of the lesson to express the way in which you do things and how you feel whilst doing them, take a look at these notes for the feelings list:
Note that “幸（しあわ）せ” and “嬉（うれ）しい” can be both translated into “happy” but they have slightly different meanings to each other. “幸せ” this would mean satisfied and happy. When we use the word “嬉しい” it means feeling joyful. Here’s an example because I can imagine you being confused of what I am saying.
Ex)幸せ
“I feel happy living with my family.”
→ 「家族（かぞく）と一緒（いっしょ）に住（す）めて幸（しあわ）せだ。」
嬉しい
“I feel happy because today’s class got cancelled.”
→ 「今日（きょう）の授業（じゅぎょう）がなくなったので嬉（うれ）しい。」
Also, keep in mind that “寂（さび/さみ）しい” and “悲（かな）しい” are different even though they can both be translated into “sad”. This is because “寂しい” is more from a subjective viewpoint. “悲しい” is used for something that is sad from a third person viewpoint. Make sure to check the examples to understand clearly.
Ex)寂しい
“I feel sad because my friend went to America.”
→ 「友達（ともだち）がアメリカに行（い）ってしまい寂（さび）しい。」
悲しい
“Many citizens in Syria are being killed and it is sad”
→ 「シリアでの多（おお）くの市民（しみん）がが殺（ころ）されていて悲（かな）しい。」
“恋（こい）しい” is a term that does not exist in English. It is used to express the feeling when an individual misses someone/something. Using 会(あ）いたい for person is okay as well.
Ex)Something
“I miss my Mom’s dishes.”
→ 「母（はは）の料理（りょうり）がが恋（こい）しい。」
Someone
“I miss my girlfriend in Tokyo.”
→ 「東京（とうきょう）にいる彼女（かのじょ）が恋（こい）しい。」
Adverbs – Expressing more feelings in Japanese!
So lastly we are going to look at expressing feeling through adverbs in Japanese. An adverb is a tool that helps you express the feeling you have when completing an action. Take a look at this list below to see some examples.
| thankfully | Arigatai koto ni | ありがたいことに |
| mysteriously | Fushigi na koto ni | ふしぎなことに |
| fortunately | Saiwai na koto ni | さいわいなことに |
| unfortunately | Fukou na koto ni | ふこうなことに |
| interestingly | Omoshiroi koto ni | おもしろいことに |
| Annoyingly | Kuyashii koto ni | くやしいことに |
As you can see, the rule mainly to create adverbs in Japanese in this specific form is to take an adjective and add “ことに” “koto ni” to the end of that adjective. With (na) adjective you should keep in the (na) before “koto ni”.
Lets now look at some examples sentences to show you how these work in more detail.
In this first example the speaker is using the adverb “fukou na koto ni” to express a negative feeling towards the phrase which follows. This is a great phrase to use when you want to be more indirect and express feeling of regret towards the listener.
不幸なことに、さらなる困難が我々を待ち受けていた。
Unfortunately there was more trouble ahead.
fukou na koto ni, saranaru konnan ga wareware o machiukete ita.
In this next example the speaker is expressing his happiness in the fact that no one is outside. Perhaps he has just painted his fence in a coat of fresh paint and doesn’t want anyone touching it. Cant blame the guy!
幸いなことに、塀の外にも人影はなかった。
Fortunately, there was no one outside the fence.
saiwai na koto ni, hei no soto ni mo hitokage wa nakatta.
In this last example the speaker is expressing his frustration in losing his wallet for a second time, how annoying. You can use “kuyashii koto ni” to express your feelings of annoyance towards pretty much anything. This is a really fun adverb to use so we are sure you can think of many ways to use this one.
くやしいことに僕の財布をまた無くした
Kuyashii koto ni boku no saifu wo mata nakushita
Annoyingly I’ve lost my wallet again.
So guys, there we have it, keep this article book marked and ensure you keep coming back to use this as your Japanese feeling vocabulary bible. Remember to implement the techniques we talked about in the article to help you learn them thoroughly. There is no point just reading the article and not actually implementing the vocabulary or else you will forget it pretty quickly.
We hope that you enjoyed todays lesson and that you will come back and join us next time for another incredible Online Japanese Lesson from Bondingo.
Remember, if you have any questions or ideas for new content, you can get in touch with us anytime as we love hearing your though and ideas. Until next time, またね.
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