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-ben | Standard Japanese | English |
---|---|---|
wa | 私 | I, me |
ome | あなた | you |
wa(n)do | 私達 | We, us (combination of わ + はんど (たち) |
mehe | 店 | Shop |
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 |
kunpita | 首 | Neck (アイヌ語) |
danburi | トンボ | Dragonfly |
kimi | 玉蜀黍 | Corn |
Verbs
Tsugaru-ben | Standard Japanese | English | Example |
---|---|---|---|
hakkeru (ichidan) | 走る | to run | musume 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-ben | Standard Japanese | English | Example |
---|---|---|---|
a(n)zumashi(i) | ゆったりして | Comfortable | soregara wa goguragu de anzumashigu kuraheda ndabe ne |
sanbi | 寒い | Cold | |
maine1 | 駄目 | No good | moo nido to tsukamareba maine do . |
maine equates to だめ in Standard Japanese, but is conjugatable.
Particles
Tsugaru-ben | Standard Japanese | Notes | Example |
---|---|---|---|
sa | に | Postposition | soheba ora no e sa kureba ii ! |
be | Hortative | mide kuru be . | |
ba | を | Accusative | basama hadage sa kusurininjin ba uede , sore ba tagagu uru mon da dogode , jenko daba unaru hodo tamede da zuon na . |
daba | は | Topic | |
dakya | は | Topic | |
hande | から | Conjunctive (because) | |
ba(t)te | けど | Conjunctive (although) | |
do | と | Quotative | |
zu | と | Quotative | |
on2 | Inferential | ||
dya | よ | Final (assert) | |
byon | Inferential | ||
ba | か | Final (question) | |
he | ください | Imperative (polite) | |
bari | ばかり |
"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.