Friday, October 19, 2012

"What's Up?" English LEVEL UP!!

 Note: "Russell's Ken-Bun-Ki" is a series of articles I wrote for my Japanese City Hall newsletter back in 1996. They were articles about life in America or life in Japan as experienced by an American.
This one from October 24, 1996 is a little different in that I did a "mini English lesson."  

This week I'm trying to "Level UP" your English with a mini-English lesson. Let's learn words that use the word "UP." 

Stand Up (order): Tachinasai!
Stand Up For (Russell): (Russell) wo kabau 
Shut Up: damarinasai (somewhat rude form)
Throw Up: haki-dasu
Slow Up: motto yukkuri ni (the opposite of "Speed Up")
Catch Up: oitsuku (like racing), hanashi nado wo samatageru (telling someone a quick re-cap)
Read Up: bennkyo shite-oku (especially before tests; be careful that this is "read" and not "lead")
Look Up: miageru (visually), shiraberu (in a dictionary etc) 
Look Up To (Dad): (chichi) wo sonkei suru
Make Up: tsukuri-goto, kessho-hin (on your face) (you can also use this to mean making up a test or something)
Mess Up: hema wo yaru
Mix Up: konran suru, konran saseru 
Bring Up: kodomo nado wo ikusei suru (raising children), kaiginado de mondai wo mochi-dasukotonado (bringing up an issue at a meeting)
Break Up: band ya fufu nado no kaisan 
There are many more like this. By the way, the title of today's lesson "Level Up" is NOT English! We don't say this in the US. It's a Japanese made-up English creation. And "what's up?" of course means "genki kai?"

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