kawaii

[BroChiMinh]

If you were to call a girl kawaii does it mean cute as in attractive/pretty/beautiful or does it mean like kawaii in a hello-kitty fashion? Also what other words are there to describe a girl? Something like an analog to pretty.

 

[Mike Cash]

Kawaii refers to things which are "cute" or "adorable". Idiomatically it can have other uses as well.

Pretty: "kirei"

Beautiful: "utsukushii" (which iPhone auto-corrects to "Utah yahoo")

 

[BroChiMinh]

thanks dude, I'd heard of utsukushii before but someone told me that you only used that if you knew the person well enough. Is kirei as casual as kawaii?

 

[Toritoribe]

Not at all. You can use utsukushii for any person.

Kirei can be used both in casual and formal situation.