Expressing a feeling of loneliness

[rquethe]

ﾋ?ｪﾂ人 and ﾅｽﾂｩ窶｢ﾂｪﾂ seem very lacking to me in expressing an idea about how lonely one feels without a *special* someone. Does anyone know of a good way of expressing the idea of a feeling of loniliness? I'm not looking for anything crude, but rather somber and a bit blue if you will...

 

[Elizabeth]

I usually hear Hitori bouchi (sp?) for loneliness in that sense....although there may be others as well.

 

[Buntaro]

Hitori bochi? Boy, that reminds me of Kyu Sakamoto!

 

[PaulTB]

独りぼっち(P); 一人ぼっち 【ひとりぼっち(P)】 alone; lonely; solitude

 

[rquethe]

I'm sorry, but could someone maybe use it in a sentence? Maybe something like, "I'm depressed because I'm lonely." or "I'm lonely and I wish I could find a girlfriend." Or any derivative or variation thereof. Thanks a lot!

Also, PaulTB-san, you use two different kanji above. I recognise ﾋ?ｪﾂ人ﾂ obviously, but not the first one that is used. Is that a mistake?

 

[PaulTB]

I'm sorry, but could someone maybe use it in a sentence?

一人ぼっちにされたので、その小さな女の子は泣きだした。
Left alone, the little girl began to cry.

Also, PaulTB-san, you use two different kanji above. I recognise 一人 obviously, but not the first one that is used. Is that a mistake?

Nope. Just two different ways of writing ひとりぼっち
一人 【ひとり(P)】 one person
独り 【ひとり】 (adv,n) alone; unmarried; (P)

However I'm not sure that ひとりぼっち is the best choice for your original question.

 

[Elizabeth]

Well, as sabishii or samishii is the adjective
"Because I don't have a girlfriend, I'm/have become lonely and depressed." becomes
something close to :
恋人がいないので, 寂し・(て)落ち込んでkimashita/iru/mimashita/.
Or, 恋人がいないので、寂し・(て)うつ病になっている/なってきました/なりました etc。

I want a girlfriend is expressed
"恋人がほしいんです," but is this more natural than "looking for love, wish I could find that someone special" etc. you'll need to call in the pros to assess....

 

[PaulTB]

I want a girlfriend is expressed
"恋人がほしいんです," but is this more natural than "looking for love, wish I could find that someone special" etc. you'll need to call in the pros to assess....

Worst one I've seen '恋人募集中' (it's quite popular on 'certain types' of forums).

 

[Elizabeth]

Worst one I've seen '恋人募集中' (it's quite popular on 'certain types' of forums).

They need to learn this one, wouldn't you say?

Ai wa (Koibito wa) watashi no jinseikan wo igi no aru (iru) mono (hito) (ni suru, ni naru, desu?)

 

[PaulTB]

They need to learn this one, wouldn't you say?

Not sure I'm with you. 恋人募集中 is used by native speakers not Japanese learners - it's just a (IMO) very ugly way of putting it.

 

[Elizabeth]

Yeah, I was trying to say they would do well with (to learn) a more poetic view of things . Like love/a girlfriend is the thing that gives my outlook on life meaning.....(well, just life is probably more sensical here .

 

[PaulTB]

Ah. Frankly I tend to mostly ignore romaji. ^^;
Hmm I suppose I might say ...
恋は人生に甲斐を与えるものです。

 

[Elizabeth]

Only because I'm working at the moment that I don't have much choice about the romaji. Mine was probably more literally "A girlfriend is the thing/person that makes my life meaningful." Although for this 恋は人生に甲斐を与えるものです maybe aette kureru mono adds a certain elegance ?

 

[PaulTB]

Although for this 恋は人生に甲斐を与えるものです maybe aette kureru mono adds a certain elegance ?

I'm in no position to judge 'elegance' - ask me again in another 5 years.

 

[Elizabeth]

I'll ask someone if I have a chance.....

 

[mdchachi]

hitoribocchi is the best word I've heard for this situation. It's definitely used when people are depressed. I've heard it used that way and there are plenty of examples from blogs & forums:

先週土曜日、突然彼女に振られクリスマス一人ぼっち。
誰かクリスマス相手になって・れ～。
Last Saturday I was unexpectedly dumped by my girlfriend, I'll be totally alone on Christmas.
Somebody please spend Christmas with me...

一人ぼっちでいるべき？
Am I meant to be all alone?

なんか最近いろんなことが、、ってか
全てのことがうま・いかない。
最近死にたいって普通に思うんだ。
まなは一人ぼっちだから。
もぉ一度生まれ変わったらもっともっと・・なりたいな。
生きてる価値なんかきっとないんだ。
Lately just everything, nothing goes right.
Lately I frequently think that I want to die.
Because I'm so alone.
If I'm reincarnated once more, I want to be much stronger.
There just doesn't seem to be any value in living.

Pretty heavy stuff.

BTW does anybody know what the "manaha" in the hitoribocchi line means? Also are there any plans to fix the Japanese display on the board (or is there some secret trick I missed)?

 

[Elizabeth]

And if you start feeling this way, @rquethe , to the degree you can persuade yourself that not everything in life is bad hopefully it'll do some good

人生悪いことばかりじゃないと自分に言い聞かすしかないですね。or
人生悪いことばかりじゃない」と自分に言い聞かせる力が・ります。
自分を励ますというのはなかなか
気力を伴うもので、それができる限りrquethesan は大丈夫です。

 

[PaulTB]

Also are there any plans to fix the Japanese display on the board

Don't know.

(or is there some secret trick I missed)?

There's a trick, it's not secret (I've mentioned it in several threads).

See how I type く, あ, お腹 and 勉強 without mojibake or disappearing letters.

 

[Elizabeth]

Don't know.
There's a trick, it's not secret (I've mentioned it in several threads).
See how I type あ, あ, おあ and 勉あ without mojibake or disappearing letters.

Is that in Western European code ? The only thing that works for me as well.

 

[PaulTB]

Is that in Western European code ? The only thing that works for me as well.

Yup. Although you have to remember to
a) Change encoding before typing rather than after
b) Not use smilies if you have any )'s next to Japanese text.

 

[Elizabeth]

Another common expression or mantra for "I wish something good would happen" is :
Nani ka ii koto nai kana

or it's longer counterpart Nani ka ii koto ga okoranai kana.

Hopefully someone can still advice you on actually saying you'd like to find someone .

 

[Elizabeth]

There's a trick, it's not secret (I've mentioned it in several threads).

See how I type く, あ, お腹 and 勉強 without mojibake or disappearing letters.

There's also a problem accessing old posts....at least this one for me....if there's anything floating around for that.

わくわく、 blah blah, etc | Japan Forum

 

[mdchachi]

I did see that in another thread. I tried it but it didn't work for me. (But I don't use IME to enter the text, I cut & paste from JWPce). Same way I used to on this board (& others)...

 

[Elizabeth]

BTW does anybody know what the "manaha" in the hitoribocchi line means? Also are there any plans to fix the Japanese display on the board (or is there some secret trick I missed)?

I don't know if there are any plans either. It would certainly be helpful but the coding has been switched at least twice that I'm aware of and each time has resulted in something either worse or more cumbersome input or output. It seems the only thing, for me at least, completely unreadable in Auto Select or JIS is now EUC entry.

 

[PaulTB]

I don't know if there are any plans either. It would certainly be helpful but the coding has been switched at least twice

Once when it went from the old forum code to the new one when it changed to ISO-8859-1 (which is for Western text). Oddly that worked for most people for new posts. However some (apparently non-Windows &/or non-IME users) were disadvantaged.

Twice when it switched to JIS - which was a disaster. As I'd noted before hand there are quite a few single-character bytes that are used in the double-character JIS encoded text that are mangled by the forum code (& " < > that I know of). Due to the way JIS works a single error can mangle an entire thread.

Three times when it switched to the (current) x-sjis, which almost works - except for some characters (く, あ, 腹, and one of the two from 勉強 that I know of). Luckily the mangling only affects one character.