Japanese · Japan
ばか
baka[ba̠ka̠]
Listen to how locals say it.
Meaning
Fool, idiot; also adjectivally “stupid, ridiculous”.Machine-assisted translation
Pronunciation
- Romanization
- baka
- IPA
- [ba̠ka̠]
“BA-ka” — even pitch, short a.
How it's used
Mild and often affectionate between friends. Regional weight is inverted with あほ: ばか is the harsher word in Kansai, あほ the harsher one in Kantō.Machine-assisted translation
Cultural context
Written 馬鹿 (“horse deer”), a spelling traced to a Chinese story of calling a deer a horse; Wiktionary lists both the noun and na-adjective senses.Machine-assisted translation
Literal meaning
horse deer
Regional use
- JP In Kansai ばか lands heavier than あほ; in Kanto it is the other way round.
When to avoid it
Situations where people would rather you did not say it.
- At work — Avoid
- At school — Depends. Passes as teasing, but repeated it counts as bullying.
- On the street — Depends. Light in Kansai, noticeably harsher in Kanto.
Sources
Every claim on this page traces back to these entries.
Passages derived from these dictionary entries are redistributed under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.