The Tsugaru Dialect

Dictionary

This page consists of a small sample of some common and interesting Tsugaru-ben words. You can find more words in the Matsunoki Corpus. There is now a learner's dictionary that defines the words that appear in the corpus.

The research page also contains other dictionary resources.

Details about parts of speech and inflection can be found here.

Guide

Tsugaru-ben is transcribed in romaji. See the grammar guide for a guide on pronunciation. Characters between parentheses indicate optional pronuncation.

Nouns

Tsugaru-benStandard JapaneseEnglish
waI, me
omeあなたyou
wa(n)do私達We, us (combination of わ + はんど (たち)
meheShop
ba(n)ge夕べEvening (usually pronounced with n)
oboko赤ちゃんBaby
waraha(n)do子どもたちChildren
warashi子どもChild
jama高度Height
kunpitaNeck (アイヌ語)
danburiトンボDragonfly
kimi玉蜀黍Corn

Verbs

Tsugaru-benStandard JapaneseEnglishExample
hakkeru (ichidan)走るto runmusume tagara no tama ba motte yama sa mugatte hakkeda .
asagu歩くto walk
kepparuがんばるto do one's best

Adjectives

Tsugaru-benStandard JapaneseEnglishExample
a(n)zumashi(i)ゆったりしてComfortablesoregara wa goguragu de anzumashigu kuraheda ndabe ne
sanbi寒いCold
maine1駄目No goodmoo nido to tsukamareba maine do .
1

maine equates to だめ in Standard Japanese, but is conjugatable.

Particles

Tsugaru-benStandard JapaneseNotesExample
saPostpositionsoheba ora no e sa kureba ii !
beHortativemide kuru be .
baAccusativebasama hadage sa kusurininjin ba uede , sore ba tagagu uru mon da dogode , jenko daba unaru hodo tamede da zuon na .
dabaTopic
dakyaTopic
handeからConjunctive (because)
ba(t)teけどConjunctive (although)
doQuotative
zuQuotative
on2Inferential
dyaFinal (assert)
byonInferential
baFinal (question)
heくださいImperative (polite)
bariばかり
2

"zu" is often combined with "on" for the sentence final particle "zuon" (inferential mood).

Inflection

Adjective or verb -te form will often change from "kute" to "fute" or "shite". For example, 寒くて (samukute) would be さんびして (sambishite). まめしい (mameshii), a Tsugaru-ben word meaning diligint would be mameshishite in its -te form.