Loan Words in Japanese

*Japanese word of the day*
外来語（がいらいご）
/gairaigo/

Guess what this word means! As you see, it consists of 3 Kanji characters: 外(がい) + 来(らい) + 語(ご). Perhaps you've learnt each Kanji of it. 外, which is also read as /soto/, means "outside".
You know the verb 来(く)る /kuru/, "to come", don't you? And the last Kanji 語, it means "words" or "language". 日本語(にほんご) Japanese, 英語(えいご) English, 中国語(ちゅうごくご) Chinese...

The words came from outside? Yes, 外来語 means "loan words"!

There're many 外来語 in Japanese. Most of them are from English words. Here're some tips to make good use of them to build your vocabulary!

(1) They're written in Katakana

新(あたら)しくオープンしたカフェで、ランチセットをオーダーした。
/atarashiku oopun shita kafe de, ranchi setto wo oodaa shita./
I ordered lunch set in the newly opened cafe.

オープン(おーぷん) /o-pun/ open
カフェ(かふぇ) /kafe/ cafe
ランチセット(らんちせっと) /ranchi setto/ lunch set
オーダー(おーだー) /oodaa/ order

I do recommend you to learn Katakana since it is written everywhere!

(2) Just add vowels

In Japanese, consonants aren't pronounced independently.  That's why all sylabbles in Japanese , except 5 vowels あ/a/ い/i/ う/u/ え/e/ お/o/ and ん/n/, are consist of a consonant and a vowel. You'll get it if you see 50 sounds table!

スマイル(すまいる)はプライスレス(ぷらいすれす)！
/sumairu wa puraisu resu/
Smile is priceless!

スマイル(すまいる) /sumairu/ smile
プライスレス(ぷらいすれす) /puraisu resu/ priceless

It seems that if the first syllable of the word is sequence of consonants, like "smile" or "price", we tend to add the vowel sound "u". The pronounciation of "s" of "smile" becomes /su/, and "p" of "price" becomes /pu/. Isn't it? :D

Also, when a consonant ends a word, we have to add a vowel to pronounce it. The word "lunch" ends with "ch", but we pronounce it as /ranchi/. Let's see other loan words that end in "ch" or "tch".

ビーチ（びーち）/biichi/ beach
キャッチ（きゃっち） /kyacchi/ catch
コーチ（こーち）/koochi/ coach
スクラッチ（すくらっち）/sukuracchi/ scratch

Now I found that the pronunciation of "ch" wich is at the end of the word is usually changes into チ/chi/ in Japanese.

How about the words ending in "t"?
ポリグロット（ぽりぐろっと）/porigurotto/ polyglot
リスト（りすと）/risuto/ list
ホット（ほっと）/hotto/ hot
カット（かっと）/katto/ cut

And the words ending in "s" or "x"?
サーカス（さーかす）/saakasu/ circus
ミックス（みっくす）/mikkusu/ mix
リラックス（りらっくす）/rirakkusu/ relax
ワックス（わっくす）/wakkusu/ wax

Yeah, there must be some patterns!

The words ending in "l".
コントロール（こんとろーる）/kontorooru/ controll
ルール（るーる）/ruuru/ rule
ショッピングモール（しょっぴんぐもーる）/shoppingu mooru/ shopping mall


The syllable ん/n/ is kind of speciall. It's a consonant without vowels but you can use it at the end of the word.
カン（かん）/kan/ can
トーン（とーん）/toon/ tone

If the original word ends in "ng", it will be ん/n/ or んぐ/ngu/.
バン！（ばん）/ban/ bang!
ピンポン（ぴんぽん）/pinpon/ pingpong
ホンコン（ほんこん）/honkon/ Hongkong
キングコング（きんぐこんぐ）/kingu kongu/ king kong

And "m" inside the word is also pronounced as ん/n/.
ハンバーガー（はんばーがー）/hanbaagaa/ hamburger
コンプレックス（こんぷれっくす）/konpurekkusu/ complex
*In Japanese コンプレックス usually indicates "inferiority complex"
コンピューター（こんぴゅーたー）/konpyuutaa/ computer



*QUIZ*
How do you pronounce these words as loan words in Japanese?

(1) Princess
(2) Camp
(3) Punch

That's all for today! Thank you for reading my blog. I hope you like this post! Please try the quize and feel free to leave a comment. See you again ; )

Who Gives It To Whom?

*Japanese Word of the Day*
教（おし）えてくれてありがとう！
/oshiete kurete arigatou/
Thank you for letting me know!



The other day, my friend asked me that what くれて in this sentence means.
I think it's a very good question, so I'd like to share my answer with you guys. ;)

You know ありがとう/arigatou/ means "thank you", and 教(おし)える/oshieru/ means "to teach" or "to tell". This phrase can be translated as "thank you for teaching me" or "I appreciate your advice".

教えてくれて is consist of two verbs, 教える and くれる.
Let me show you some example sentences to see what the verb くれる/kureru/ means when it is used alone.

おじいちゃんはいつもお菓子(かし)をくれる。
/ojiichan wa itsumo okashi wo kureru/
Grandpa always gives me some snacks.

彼氏(かれし)がプレゼント(ぷれぜんと)をくれた。
/kareshi ga purezento wo kureta/
My boyfriend gave me a present.
*Here, くれた is the past tense of くれる.

母がおこづかいをくれた。
/haha ga okozukai wo kureta/
My mother gave me some allowance.

早(はや)く水(みず)をくれ！！
/hayaku mizu wo kure/
Give me water quickly!!
*くれ is the imperative (command) form of くれる. It sounds very rude. If you want something, you'd better to use the polite form of it, ください.

レシートをください。
/reshiito wo kudasai/
Please give me a receipt.

Now, did you notice that the object of くれる is always "me"?
Grandpa gives me blablabla, my boyfriend gave me blablabla, please give me blablabla... You don't have to add 私に/watasi ni/ "to me" when you use くれる because I know くれる always indicates that the speaker is the one who's given something.

But, in the other words, くれる basically cannot be used when the object is not yourself. It sounds a bit strange if you say 母が妹におこづかいをくれた. Sometimes we'd say like this but it implies another meaning.

Well, then how should I say "to give something to someone else"?

In this case, you should use あげる/ageru/ instead.

母(はは)が妹(いもうと)におこづかいをあげた。
/haha ga imouto ni okozukai wo ageta/
My mother gave my sister some allowance.

Both くれる and あげる mean "to give", but the point of view is totally different. Let's look at some example sentences of あげる.

後(あと)であげるね。
/ato de ageru ne/
I'll give it to you later.

犬(いぬ)に玉(たま)ねぎをあげてはいけない。
/inu ni tamanegi wo agete wa ikenai/
You must not give a dog onions.

窓(まど)からパン(ぱん)くずをあげた。
/mado kara pankuzu wo ageta/
I gave (fed) crumbs through the window.

You know, Japanese language often omit the subject of the sentence. So it might be "I gave crumbs through the window" or "An old lady gave crumbs through the window" or somebody else did. It depends on the context. Also, this sentence doesn't mention that to whom I (or somebody else) gave crumbs.

Please have a look at the sentence below.

窓(まど)からパン(ぱん)くずをくれた。
/mado kara pankuzu wo kureta/

Now I changed the verb of the sentence (あげた → くれた). You still don't know the subject of the sentence, but you can guess who got crumbs. It's me (the speaker of the sentence)! As I said, くれる suggests that the speaker is the one who gets something.

We won't say あげる when the speaker is the one who gets something. So 彼氏が私にプレゼントをあげる sounds unnatural.


And one more important property of this verb―gratitude! :)
When I say パンくずをくれた, it implies that I appreciate the one who gave me crumbs. Maybe I was too hungry? Or I love crumbs? Who cares! XD Anyway, this verb くれる shows that you feel thankful, or you are happy to get something.

What to say when you're not happy to get something? Or you don't want to use the words which contain gratitude? For example, your dad gave you a thick math book for your birthday. If you love math (do you?!), then you can say:

父(ちち)が誕生日(たんじょうび)に数学(すうがく)の本(ほん)をくれた。
/chichi ga tanjoubi ni suugaku no hon wo kureta/
My father gave me a thick math book. (and I'm happy to get it)

But if you don't like math and you're not happy at all to get such a present, you should say like this:

父(ちち)から誕生日(たんじょうび)に数学(すうがく)の本(ほん)をもらった。
/chichi kara tanjoubi ni suugaku no hon wo moratta/

もらう/morau/ is a verb which means "to get" or "to receive". So the subject of this sentence is "I", but I just omitted it. The full sentence is: 私（わたし）は父(ちち)から誕生日(たんじょうび)に数学(すうがく)の本(ほん)をもらった。 You can say 父にもらう or 父からもらう. Here I used から to avoid repetition of に (父に誕生日に...).

→ See more explanation of から!

By the way, I guess you've learnt ください as "please". Yes, it means "please" when it's used with other verbs. You can also use くれ to ask someone to do something, but it sounds arrogant.

窓(まど)を閉(し)めてください。
/mado wo shimete kudasai/
Please close the window.

一緒(いっしょ)に来(き)てください。
/issho ni kite kudasai/
Please come with me.

ほっといてくれ。
/hottoite kure/
Leave me alone, please.


OK, now let's look at the first sentence 教えてくれてありがとう. What くれる of 教えてくれる means? The role of くれる isn't same as ください in above sentences, I think.


Let's compare two sentences.

(1) 友達(ともだち)が私(わたし)におもしろいゲーム(げーむ)を教(おし)えた。
/tomodachi ga watashi ni omoshiroi geemu wo oshiete kureta/

(2) 友達(ともだち)がおもしろいゲーム(げーむ)を教(おし)えてくれた。
/tomodachi ga omoshiroi geemu wo oshiete kureta/

Both can be translated as "My friend told me about an interesting game." What are the differences between them? I want you to remember that くれる implies the speaker feel thankful about it. You can see that the speaker of (2) probably feels happy to know about the game. Or, he thinks what his 友達 did was good for him.

Do you get the picture? :)

姉(あね)が一緒(いっしょ)に来(き)てくれた。
/ane ga issho ni kite kureta/
My sister came with me. (And I appreciate about it)

彼（かれ）はいつも私（わたし）に話（はな）しかけてくれる。
/kare wa itsumo watashi ni hanashi kakete kureru/
He always speaks to me. (And I think he's very kind)

来（き）てくれて嬉（うれ）しいよ。
/kite kurete ureshii yo/
I'm glad you came.



We often use it with other verbs when we ask something casually.

ちょっと窓(まど)を開(あ)けてくれる？
/chotto mado wo akete kureru/
Can you open the window? (And I'd be appreciate if you'd do that)

この文章(ぶんしょう)を直(なお)してくれる？
/kono bunshou wo naoshite kureru/
Can you correct these sentences for me? (And it'd be very helpful if you could)

Sometimes it sounds a biiiiit arrogant. So we tend to use くれない, which is the negative form of くれる. If you want to make it more polite, you can say くれますか instead of くれる. And also, くれませんか sounds more soft.

Agh, I know it's confusing though...

くれる？ ＜ くれない？ ＜ くれますか ＜ くれませんか？
Casual  -----------------------------> Polite
Which should I use? Well, it depends on how close you guys are. :P


今度(らいしゅう)の日曜(にちよう)、僕(ぼく)とデート(でーと)してくれませんか？
/raishuu no nichiyou, boku to deeto shite kuremasen ka/
Will you please go on a date with me?

忙(いそが)しいから、また今度(こんど)にしてくれない？
/isogashii kara, mata kondo ni shite kurenai/
I'm busy, can't it be at some other time?

By the way, when Japanese people say また今度 "maybe next time", most of the time it implies that she doesn't want to go. :(



Ohh, I wrote a lot! I did it! haha
I hope it would be of your help. :) Please let me know if you have any questions or if you want more examples. Thank you for reading, 読(よ)んでくれてありがとう！；）

See ya!

Hooked On!!

*Japanese Word of the Day*
最近（さいきん）、絵(え)を描（か）くのにハマ（はま）ってるんだよね。
/saikin, e wo kaku no ni hamatterun dayone/
I'm recently hooked on painting a picture!!

*最近（さいきん） /saikin/ recently, these days

*絵（え） /e/ a drawing, a painting, a sketch, a illustration
― 絵（え）を描（か）く /e wo kaku/ to draw/paint a picture

*～にハマ（はま）っている /...ni hamatte iru/ to be hooked on, to be into
When we speak, this い is often omitted.

You may thought what の between 絵を描く and ハマってる means. It's one of the particles! It's added after a verb to change it into a noun. Sometimes we use こと instead of の. (Or, we use の instead of こと sometimes?? I'm not sure...)

◎ 絵を描く　の　にハマってる。
◎ 絵を描く　こと　にハマってる。
× 絵を描く　に　ハマってる。

Read this post to know the other usage of の. :)
→ の＝of ?



Actually, I'm into painting with oil pastels! I recently upload some of my paintings on Pinterest. Please visit my page if you're interested. :3

And I want to add one more phrase today.
最近（さいきん）、ハマっていることはありますか？
Guess what it means, and let me know your answer! haha





By the way, I found a very interesting blog post!!
How to Write in Japanese - A Beginner's Guide
This is a step-by-step guide to reading and writing Japanese, Kana and Kanji.



That's all for today! Thank you for reading. See you next time! :)

Related post:
Kanji Lesson
Japanese is easier than you think!

How long do you stay?

*Japanese Word of the Day*
何泊（なんはく/なんぱく）する予定（よてい）？
/nanhaku(nanpaku) suru yotei?/
How many nights do you plan to stay?

三泊（さんぱく）四日（よっか）だよ。
/sanpaku-yokka dayo/
For 4 days and 3 nights.

You can say only 三泊（3 nights） instead of 三泊四日(4 days and 3 nights), but we usually say the latter. 泊 means "to stay" and it's pronounced as はく/haku/ or ぱく/paku/.

・一泊（いっぱく）二日（ふつか） 2 days and 1 night
・二泊（にはく）三日（みっか） 3 days and 2 nights
・三泊（さんぱく）四日（よっか） 4 days and 3 nights
・四泊（よんはく/よんぱく）五日（いつか） 5 days and 4 nights
・五泊（ごはく）六日（むいか） 6 days and 5 nights

*～泊する/...haku(paku) suru/ to stay ... nights
・一泊（いっぱく）する
・二泊（にはく）する
・三泊（さんぱく）する

*予定（よてい）/yotei/ a plan
*～する予定 /...suru yotei/ I'm going to ...

今週（こんしゅう）の日曜日（にちようび）何（なに）か予定（よてい）ある？
/konshuu no nichi-youbi nanika yotei aru?/
Do you have any plans for this Sunday?
明日（あした）は友（とも）だちと遊（あそ）びに行（い）く予定（よてい）。
I'm going to hang out with my friends.



I took a trip to Matsu Island, which is one of the small islands in Taiwan. It was a 4-day trip (三泊四日). I stayed in a pretty village, Chinbe Village, which has a beach right in front of it.

Chinbe Village

The hotel I stayed

It was foggy on the last day. All flights cancelled due to dense fog, so I tried to get a ferry ticket instead. It would take 7 hours from the island by ferry but it was the only way to go back. There were a lot of people in the small port. It was exhausting and stressful... I couldn't buy a ticket after all. They ran just one ferry a day, and they were close the next day.

I heard that there was another route to go back to Taiwan: Take a ferry to China first, and then take a plane to Taiwan. So I tried anything I could do. It was hard but a great practice speaking Chinese! :'D Unfortunately, the ferry also cancelled. I had to wait until the fog was cleared. I ended up staying 2 more days!


Anyway, it was a nice trip.

Learn From Mistakes

失敗（しっぱい）は成功（せいこう）のもと
/shippai wa seikou no moto/

This is a Japanese proverb, which means "Every failure is a stepping stone to success".
Do you have the same proverb in your native language? :)

Making a mistake isn't bad at all. You can learn through mistakes. Not only your own mistakes, but also other people's mistakes. I found an interesting blog post which explains how to learn pronunciation/grammar/native-like communication skill while speaking your native language, by observing other people's mistakes.

Learn Better Pronunciation While Speaking Your Native Language


It also mentions about Japanese language/people.

My Japanese friends add extra syllables to words. “McDonald’s” becomes “Macu Donarudosu.” It’s useful as you can instantly speak hundreds of words of English origin in Japanese simply by sticking to the consonant-vowel pattern in the Japanese syllabary.

It reminds me of our English teacher in junior high school. He got angry when we speak English with strong Japanese accent like "あい　あむ　あ　すとぅーでんと" (can you guess what it means?). XD

Japanese speakers will say “foreign country people,” an awkward way of saying “people from other countries.” The direct translation from Japanese causes this — gaikokujin — literally, foreign country people. Remembering the direct Japanese translation into English actually helps me remember the word in Japanese.

Speaking of which, some Japanese students often make the same kind of mistake, like "I am like dogs", when they should say "I like dogs." It's funny, huh? I guess it is because they're taught that be-verbs are translated as "～は・・・です". "A is B" becomes "AはBです". They directly translate Japanese sentence "私は犬が好きです (= I like dogs)" into English. :(

Actually, "～は・・・です" is not a be-verb. We add です at the end of the sentence to make the sentence polite. は is so called the particle which shows the topic of the sentence.

Also, the word order in Japanese is really different from English! I've written about the difference between the Japanese word order and the English word order. Here's the example sentence I wrote.

昨日 / 公園で / 父が /  寝ているのを / 見た。
I saw my father sleeping at the park yesterday.

Japanese speakers describe things from circumference, while English speakers center its subject and its verb.

When I speak Spanish, I don’t hesitate to jump into conversation quickly. However, when I speak Japanese, I allow a bit more room to breathe between speakers.

 I simply used the fillers I had picked up from observing Japanese conversation — “so, so, so” to agree and “ehhh?” to show surprise.

It's considered as rude to jump into conversation or interrupt when someone else is speaking, but we give あいづち frequently during conversation to show that we pay attention. Here's the post I wrote about it!



You can find a lot of "interesting mistakes" in lang-8, where many language learners post an entry in their target language to get corrections from native speakers. I've written about common mistakes in Japanese which I found through correcting my friends' entries.


That's all for today! Thank you for reading. :)


*Japanese Word of the Day*
大丈夫（だいじょうぶ）！
/daijoubu/
It's okay! No worries! No problems!

Vocabulary!!

Vocabulary! When we learn a foreign language, it would be the most important (and daunting!) part of learning. A language teacher can teach you some words, but they cannot memorize them in your place. We all have to learn it by ourselves.

So, how do you remember words? Maybe the most efficient way is to review the words when you're about to forget. Have you seen this graph before? It's so called the Ebbinghaus's Forgetting Curve.

The red line shows how information lost over time. As you see, if we don't attempt to review the words that we learned, it'd be lost in a couple of days! But as the green lines show, more we review it, the more stronger we make the memory, the longer we can remember it.

I found a nice infographic that explains about the Forgetting Curve.



Find more education infographics on e-Learning Infographics


I used to write words down on loose leaf paper and review it when I have time. As time went by, the number of sheets of paper got increased. I removed some paper which had words I already remembered on it. If there were words that I still didn't remembered yet, I wrote them again on the new sheet of paper.

My Chinese and Persian notebooks!

I first wrote the word that I wanted to remember with red pen, and added a couple of sentences which included the word. I didn't write Japanese translation of it, but the example sentences helped me to remember the meaning of it. Sometimes I drew pictures, or some related words.


It was my best way to remember words. Well, it WAS. Now I use an app on my tablet! My husband bought it for me! Yay! XD

The app I'm using now is Anki. Maybe you know it already? Anki is one of the flash cards apps, which is based on the Forgetting Curve. I put new words by desktop app and review them on tablet. Here's its website! Check it out if you haven't tried!






By the way, I found a funny quiz! :)
How Japanese Are You?

I was "50% Japanese"! haha What's the other half?



*Japanese Word of the Day*
ピンポーン！！（ぴんぽーん）
/pinpoon/
Bingo! That's it! Exactly!

*It's also the sound of door bell "ding dong".

How I Study a Language

Today I'm going to write about how I study Chinese through language exchange. I've been studied it for almost 2 years, since I moved to Taiwan. And it was my first challenge to learn a language without taking any classes.

I found that all successful language learners (like Benny of FI3M, Olly of IWTYAL, Timothy of Polyglotpal, and many other wondeful polyglots!!) learn languages by theirselves. They inspired me a lot, and made me notice that I also love languages. The most impressive word they gave me was:

Languages cannot to be taught, they can only be learnt.

So, if you're going to start learning Japanese or any other languages but you can't find appropreate classes near your house, don't feel disappointed. It's OK, you can learn it by yourself! :)

Before Language Exchange

I said I started to learn Chinese since I moved to Taiwan, but actually I had 3 weeks before coming. I went to a libruary and borrowed the simplest book which introduces very basic Chinese grammer and phrases. I know some people would say that it's no good to start from learning grammer, but it worked for me. It was interesting to me to know how Chinese language is composed.

Simultaneously, I subscribed some Youtube channels which provide free lessons for beginners. I recommend Yangyang's lessons if you also want to start learning Chinese. ;)

I listened to an audio phrase book before sleep, and while sleeping. It helped me a lot to get used to the rythm of Chinese language. You know, it's really important to know how it sounds because Chinese is a "tone language". "Ma" with high pitched voice and "Ma" with low pitched voice have totally different meanings!

I found a website that you can download free audio files. I downloaded Persian from this website by the way. It's pretty nice. :)
→  50 Languages

Japanese language is not so severe about pronunciation compared to Chinese, though some words are bit hard for foreigners to distinguish. (おばさん/obasan/ and おばあさん/obaasan/ are the totally different words!)

Found a Language Exchange Partner

→ How to find a language exchange partner

You have to speak it if you want to be able to speak a language. It's true. Though I listened to the audio files almost everyday, my pronunciation was awfully terrible. I tried to speak the words I learnt but it always didn't make sense to my language exchange partner. She was patient and severe (in a good way!), so that I could train myself to improve my pronunciation.

If you want to learn a language by yourself, it'd be better to have someone who lets you output what you've learnt and corrects it. I've heard a lot of Japanese people say "I'll find someone to talk with... after I became good enough to speak". That's why they still can't speak it, and they'd never became "good enough". You know what I mean?

The First Step For Language Exchange

When we learn a language, we'd start with greetings and self-introduction.
→ Self introduction in Japanese
OK, then what should I talk though I don't have enough words in my vocabulary? Well, in my case, I tried to use the words and phrases that I learnt from a book or a Youtube lesson. So my "input" was always for "output". I mean, I was always thinking what to talk by using those new words when I study.

I tried to speak in Chinese as much as possible. It is my policy not to use English even if it takes a long time to tell her what I want to say. The more I struggle with, the more unforgettable it becomes. I hardly forget the words I learnt in that situation. (I never forget the word "towel" in Chinese!)

Here's some Japanese phrases for the first step language exchange! :)
→ Basic phrases for language exchange
→ Basic phrases for language exchange (2)

Start Practice Writing

After I knew how to type Chinese on my laptop, I started to post some entries on Lang-8.com. I wrote things that related to myself, not just boring example sentences with the words I learnt. I got many corrections, and I used these corrected sentences when I talked with my language exchange partners. I also wrote about what I talked in language exchange. So I wrote/spoke/read the same words and phrases again and again.
Fortunately, I had more than one partner, so I could practice speaking same things more than once. :)

Here's the post I wrote about Lang-8 and how to type Japanese on your laptop.
→ How to type Japanese

How It Went?

I took an exam called TOCFL (Taiwan's national standardized test) last year. It was a bit hard to read a long sentences, but I could pass it at B2 level. Thanks to my all language exchange partners, I could reach upper-intermidiate level in a year. It's not as cool as those famous polyglots who get B2 level within half a year, but it meant a lot to me. :)

Now I still keep in touch with these language exchange partners. They're my best friends!


Well, that's all for today! I want to know how you study languages. :)
Please let me know by leaving a comment!


*Japanese Word of the Day*
言語（げんご）交換（こうかん）のパートナー募集（ぼしゅう）中（ちゅう）！
/gengo-koukan no paatonaa boshuu-chuu/
Looking for a language exchange partner!

*言語（げんご）/gengo/ a language
*交換（こうかん）/koukan/ exchanging
 → 交換する/koukan suru/ to exchange

ポイント（ぽいんと）を景品（けいひん）と交換（こうかん）した。
/pointo wo keihin to koukan shita/
I redeemed my points for some rewards.

*ポイント（ぽいんと） /pointo/ a point
*景品（けいひん）/keihin/ a reward

*パートナー（ぱーとなー）/paatonaa/ a partner

*募集（ぼしゅう）/boshuu/ an invitation, an advertisement, a recruitment
 → 募集する /boshuu suru/ to recruit, to look for
 → 募集中（ぼしゅうちゅう）/boshuu chuu/ now hiring, looking for

恋人（こいびと）募集中（ぼしゅうちゅう）です。
/koibito boshuu-chuu desu/
I'm available. I'm looking for a girlfriend/boyfriend.