Kawaii in Oxford English Dictionary

POSTED BY DANNY CHOO On Mon 2011/11/28 11:30 JST in Japanese Pop Culture

The Japanese term Kawaii has been in urban dictionaries for a while now but its finally made its debut into the Oxford English dictionary.

"kawayusu" かわゆす] is the short form of "Kawaii Desu" and one can also use the term "Kawaii-ssune" かわいいっすね].
"Kawaii" is also often written in katakana like .

Be careful how you pronounce "Kawaii" because if you say it like "Kowaii" then it means "scary" ^^;

Other Japanese terms that have made it to the English dictionary are Bokeh which refers to the out of focus background in photos and tsunami. I think it will only be a matter of time before "Oppai" makes its debut too ^^;

What other Japanese words do you think should make it into the Oxford English Dictionary?

These puchi illustrations of Mirai Suenaga and co from the Moekana hiragana learning series.

Thanks to Cavalock for the tweet.