Japanese Youngsters Living in Haste

Today's episode is a bit exclusive - in the sense that we are about to talk about Japanese youngsters and their "speech".

So, those who speak and leisurely write Japanese might love to learn that our youngsters today are inclined to abbreviate their writing to match their mode of communication.

Now, you can imagine Japanese youngsters busy themselves communicating via smart phone at their fingertips - very much in haste to keep up with the time. When they do, they have coined certain words and expressions to help speed up communication.

As you know, Japanese requires unique alphabetical tables - kanji, hiragana and kanji. The English alphabet is something extra when it comes to inputting English words.

To input OK in the middle of a Japanese sentence, one has to switch to the English keyboard just to input O and K. For sheer convenience, our youngsters have learned to input O and K in hiragana - "oke". So, a new word "oke" was coined to replace OK.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs reports in its recent survey that Japanese teens "accidentally" coined the word out of a common typing error - that is, out of the bother of switching keyboards. The report reveals that Japanese teens feel it better to send response than to waste time switching keyboards and that they are today living much in haste.

Some 59.5% of the young respondents have learned to do so to "save time", 23.2% to "express intimacy to friends" and 15.8% to "pass on feelings better".

They survey cites the case of an 18-year-old male student who confides:

" I write oke when I find it bothersome to write otherwise. If I skip answering, I might be left out contact with friends. Young ones have hard time living!"

Similarly, 56.1% of Japanese youngsters use emoticons to express feelings and 39.3% letters like "laughter", "sweat", etc.

Well, they are like anybody else - hard time living. (Nathan Shiga)