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What’s ‘Kawaii’？

Hello, everyone! How are you today?

It’s Teacher Asuka.

Today, I’m going to talk about one of the famous Japanese words ‘Kawaii’.

Have you ever heard of ‘Kawaii’? Speaking of ‘Kawaii’, you may imagine a world-famous anthropomorphic character, ‘Hello Kitty’.

 Hallo kitty Shinkansen

To be surprise, the word, ’kawaii’ is in the dictionary.

According to the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, the meaning of the word, ’kawaii’ defines ‘the quality of being pretty and attractive’. It is also shown as similar as ‘cuteness’.

It is said the ‘kawaii’ culture in Japan has started by young girls in 1970. Because of lack of vocabularies, most adults had been ashamed that the girls called all the things they saw ‘kawaii’ at that time.

However, such girls have been grown up and working as businessperson, the word, ‘kawaii’ has been collaborated with trend, fashion, or anime goods and so on and has been developing to be in a limelight as a representative of Japan’s pop culture.  

According to the Professor NITTONO from the Graduate School of Osaka University research of experimental psychology, which carried out with the university students, the conception of ‘kawaii’ itself is different from ‘childish’. When we see ‘kawaii’ things, which make us smile and we also become the feeling to wanting to be around. Such aspects of ‘kawaii’ has led to create mascot or company’s official character.

From the above, for the first time, Japan has found the existence of the feeling of ‘kawaii’ itself and such feeling gives people effect not only our heart but also behavior. Professor NITTONO says that Japan should show such effect by data as a first discoverer.

Thank you for reading and listening this time as well.

See you next time! 

Teacher Asuka