The Japanese term Kawaii [かわいい] 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 [カワイイ].
Be careful how you pronounce "Kawaii" because if you say it like "Kowaii" [怖い] then it means "scary" ^^;
Other Japanese terms that have made it to the English dictionary are Bokeh [ぼけ] 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?
There is a poll embedded in this article.
These puchi illustrations of Mirai Suenaga and co from the Moekana hiragana learning series.
Thanks to Cavalock for the tweet.
