Yes, that’s what I meant.
I suspect that “vulgar” here really means the sort of thing you’d say with friends or family, and perhaps with social inferiors, and the sort of thing you’d avoid when talking to strangers or social superiors. In addition, it’s more likely to be said by a man. Definitely not the sort of thing that you would say to the president of another company, if you hoped your company might do business with his.
Right. In the whole ingroup-outgroup superior-peer-inferior matrix of Japanese language, for me it has a feel of something you’d most likely use with an ingroup peer or inferior.
I just want to second (fifth?) the ‘yoshi’ sounding weird after a meal. I understand when you want to preserve your own unique way of speaking even in Japanese, but so much can’t be literally translated, and just plain sounds weird… You’re usually best just sticking w/ the standard phrases… ‘Oishikatta,’ ‘Gochisousama deshita,’ etc. I think in western culture, there might be more emphasis on saying something unique to express sincerity. (i.e. if someone says ‘that was delicious,’ you’d sound unimaginative or insincere if you just paroted their comment, so you say something like ‘yes, it was fantastic!’) But I don’t think that concept exists in Japanese culture. Seems like the most socially acceptable thing is just to chime in (in the exact same intonation and pitch) w/ the obligatory ‘arigatou,’ ‘otukare,’ etc…
But I dunno, that’s just from my own albeit limited experience w/ Japanese (expat) culture.
arigatou
It does sound like **Johnny L.A. **is talking to himself here, though–not making a comment to someone else he was dining with.
I was keeping this thread in mind when I watched Kurosawa’s Kagemusha last night.
The thief double was meeting the dead lord’s castle guards and pages for the first time, and he guffawed, sat informally and used the word “Yoshi!”. The servants told him, “Our lord would never be so vulgar!”
[hijack]Damn, that’s a masterful scene. The servants started to get careless about their manners, because after all, he was just a common criminal. Then he made an effort to copy the dead lord’s mannerisms, and they kind of gasped at the complete resemblance, and unconsciously switched back to respectful formality.[/hijack]
Originally posted by Johnny L.A.
“But I stopped speaking Japanese when I was little, and now I’m not so sure.”
Off topic a bit. I learned Chinese in my twenties and then never used it again until my fifties. Now I use it every day. Sometimes a word or phrase will come into my head and I have to ask a co-worker what it means.
There is, I thought, at least one context where it means “Resume” or “start again”.
In judo competition, the referee used to have a command available of “sonomama”, or “Freeze!” In groundwork, if you were about to go out of bounds, the ref could call “sonomama” and he and the judges would drag the competitors back to the center. Then they would tap both competitors and say “yoshi!” and they would start fighting again. I think it was used mostly or exclusively for juniors - too hard to drag two hundred kilos of sweaty adult around.
This would have been back in the sixties. They don’t do it nowadays.
Regards,
Shodan
When I was little I was my mom’s translator. (She said the only thing I had trouble with was telling a plumber we had ice in the pipes.) One day I was speaking Japanese to a dog. My mom asked me why. I was like, ‘:rolleyes: It’s a Japanese dog!’
When we came back to the States, I used the same logic: We’re in the States; therefore we only speak English. My folks used the phrases they knew quite a bit, but I’d answer them in English. (Incidentally, for a while I thought Ono ne! was my name in Japanese. 
) So I’ve lost all but a few phrases. I’m pretty much limited to (and I apologise for errors – as I said, I’ve forgotten nearly everything):
Sore wa oishii des(u)!
Koohi o nomi mas.
Koohi o nomi mas ka?
Ogenki des(u) ka?
Hai. Okegazama de.
Daijobu des(u) ka?
And greetings, thanks and responses, and the occasional other phrase that pops into my head and out again.
Since they both end with the same syllable and sound, why do you write “des(u)” with a “(u)” and “mas” without it? The normal way to romanise these is “desu” and “masu”, even though they are usually pronounced “des” and “mas”.
Desu: Because I wanted to make it clear that I know that the ‘u’ is usually not pronounced.
Masu: Because I didn’t remember the spelling.
I’d say it’s being used again in the “all right!” or “okay!” sense–they’re saying “All right (you can resume).”
Nitpick: Okagesama de.
Basically, it’s not used in the circumstances described in the OP.
It has an essential meaning of “all right,” but with an emphasis as a prelude to an action or decision which implies there was a debate or doubt which precluded the pronouncement.
If it were said “*yosh(i)[/] (all right), we’ve agreed that we’ll go out for beer and sushi rather than study Japanese on a Saturday night.” you can assume that at least one asshat was holding out for increased knowledge over recreation.