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lampbane commented on the word kowaii
"Scary."
October 22, 2008
vanishedone commented on the word kowaii
I thought it was kowai, and a dictionary check seems to back this up; searching for kowaii in http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi and http://www.df.lth.se/cgi-bin/j-e/dict only gives the name of a kind of food.
October 23, 2008
lampbane commented on the word kowaii
Either seem to be common, though one of the Urban Dictionary entries had a point - the extra 'i' adds a third syllable, where "kowai" only has two syllables. I've heard both spoken, maybe "kowaii" is more of a cutesy way of saying it?
October 23, 2008
qroqqa commented on the word kowaii
It should be easy enough to tell: if the ii is a mere lengthening for effect, the negative of kowai would be kowakunai with a possible lengthening to kowakunaii for the same effect. If, however, kowaii is intrinsically an alternative form, it should have a negative kowaikunai in addition to kowakunai.
(Modulo my forgetting Japanese grammar, which is quite possible. In any case, there would be some grammatical effects if there was a word consisting of stem + suffix kowai-i.)
October 23, 2008