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That works well for some uses, but you sort of both have to be colleagues, and finishing up at the same time to use that. You can say "otsukaresama" to your col
by jbay808 6y ago
That works well for some uses, but you sort of both have to be colleagues, and finishing up at the same time to use that. You can say "otsukaresama" to your colleague who is leaving before you to pick up their kids, or to your spouse when they get home from a long day, so it's a bit more flexible. It's just a nice, non-judgemental way to acknowledge someone's efforts.
- kqr 6y agoDoes it have to be a single word or phrase for all uses? That's the thing I fail to understand with these words/phrases that are hard to translate. Sure, if you need to work it into a pun or joke you almost by definition need to have a single word for two different situations, but for everyday life, I don't understand why not two or three similar phrases suffice, one for each context.
- saalweachter 6y agoIn addition to puns and jokes, poetry also frequently makes use of multiple interpretations of the same words.
- jbay808 6y agoNo, it can have multiple translations... It's just that, I've had times where I'd have a strong urge to say otsukaresama to someone, and trip over myself for lack of any appropriate way to say it. Usually those would be cases where none of the translations listed here work; not "let's call it a day" because I'm still working, not "good effort" because it's clear in the context that I have no knowledge of their level of effort and anyway that sounds like what a coach would say after practice. It just sometimes doesn't have any good translation.