Japanese at Random: Shumi (趣味)

Note #1: Japanese at Random (heretofore JaR) is going to be my title for posts about Japanese in general until I think of something more clever/organized/meaningful to call them. 

Note #2: When I romanize Japanese words, I do it according to how they sound, not how they're written. E.g., the particle は I write as "wa," not "ha," じゃ is "ja," not "jya," etc. The only exception I can think of is the particle を, which I will write as "wo" because I can kiiiiinda sooooorta hear the double-u in there. Unless I forget and write it "o." Just so you're aware.

Note #3: このＪａＲのポストは、英語が話せる読者とためですので、撮り合えず英語だけで書きます。特にどこかが気に入ったら、どうぞ言っておいて下さい。コメントでも、メールでも、構いませんよ。リクエストがある場合は、日本語の説明を書くようにします。

“Shumi”

Shumi is a Japanese word oft translated to “hobby” or “pastime.” But it’s a funny little word, to me. It has other usages that translate to different things in English, though they all share a common thread of meaning. I’m ruminating on it due to attempting to explain the various English terms to one of my fellow teachers.

Again, shumi is the given translation for a hobby/pastime. So a sentence like Shumi wa tsuri desu means “My hobby is fishing.” One of the most student-abused student-loved pastimes to offer is "reading books." You would think these kids had personal libraries at home by how often they default to that answer. 

Anywho.

The word shumi also pops up in the translation of a sentence like, "I just draw for fun" (i.e. not a professional endeavor). In Japanese, you might say E wo kaku no wa, tada no shumi desu. If you rephrase the term "hobby" as "thing(s) one does for fun," this usage is quite logical.

However, the third usage I'm aware of seems a bit farther abstracted from the word "hobby." 

Let's take an example sentence. "My friend and I have similar taste in clothing." Here, the word "taste" would be translated to shumi as well. It might look something like, Fuku wa, tomodachi to watashi no shumi ga issho desu. I can hear you going, "Huh?" right through my monitor. (Just imagine me trying to explain that in the opposite direction. There's much head-scratching involved.)

It seems unconnected, but again makes sense if you distill the meaning down to its essence. That being, "thing(s) one enjoys." In Japanese, these are all expressed with shumi. In English, the wording is different if it's a prepositional phrase, if it's describing verbs or nouns, etc. (Ignore the techno-babble.)

It might seem like an overly general word, but trust me. There are pleeeenty of situations where English is the language with one term and Japanese has a million different variations. Enjoy going from complex to simple where you can. The alternative is much suckier.

Ja, mata ne.