Why does “うっせぇわ” (Usseewa) mean “shut the f**k up”

13 comments

1. It’s from “うるさい(urusai)” that means noisy, loud.

2. ‘uru se’ is a shortening of ‘urusai’ which means loud or noisy. When I was teaching in Japan I used to hear kids say it to each other as a way to tell someone to be quiet, in a bit of a mean voice. So, ‘usse wa’ is another contraction of urusai.

3. The “wa” isn’t what makes it offensive, you put it at the end of a sentence to get a more feminine tone.

   Like others said “usse” comes from “urusai” which means loud/noisy so if you tell that to someone it’s used the same as telling them to shut up.

   I guess the added offensiveness of the translation comes from “usse” being kind of a slang way of saying it

4. There really aren’t a whole lot of ultra-obscene cuss words in Japanese that would translate directly into “f***” in English. The F word is kind of unique in its obscenity, versatility, and ubiquity.

   In general, the more you slur your words together in Japanese, the more casual and rude your speech will be heard. A calmly-spoken うるさい might just be translated as “You’re being too loud,” but うっせぇ, where the word is both slurred and drawn out, calls for something much meaner.

   “STFU” was chosen as the translation likely because it’s the simplest, most direct way to translate both the meaning and the rudeness. English speakers who are being this rude pepper their speech with the F word.

   The わ carries no meaning of its own but to imply that the speaker is a woman. It’s just a conversational particle that’s added to the end of sentences and has an effect on the tone, but not the meaning.

5. Also, you should know that while わ is stereotypically feminine (especially in media), men who speak kansai-ben use it in real life. My husband is from the kansai area and I nearly died from confusion when he told me わ was a thing men said. I found an article later that explained it’s a regional difference. It’s just another way to say よ.

   Men also often shorten い adjectives to え (すごい -> すげ、うるさい -> うるせ、たかい -> たけ、など). I’ve never heard this song before but I’m assuming it’s sung by a man who speaks kansai dialect. Unless it’s mashing gendered speech on purpose, which just seems weird in the case.

6. For everyone here commenting that the わ sounds feminine here, it’s definitely not. In Kansai, Chubu, and probably some other areas, わ (down step) is used by males as well and serves a similar function to よ, and that’s almost certainly what this is.

7. I don’t know Japanese *yet* but off the top of my head the literal meaning would be something like “you are too noisy” which would be translated as “shut up”. I also guess that the f*** represents the lack of respect on that phrase not that there literally is a bad word there.

8. a fellow Ado listener, nice

9. U can also understand it as “fcking anoying”

10. So if I’m getting this right from what everyone else is saying:

    Urusai = “You’re noisy (Shut up)”

    And both languages have a “rudeness modifier”. In English that’s adding words like “the heck” in Japanese that’s slurring. So in order to properly translate you have to add that rudeness modifier.

    Basically?

11. i really dont know what usseewa means but the fucking song is so GOOOD and AMAZING its just my song to be in the mood or somth

12. usse as others said is a shortened term for urusai. imo, wa just is just there to point someone for that ‘usse’ so in literal translation it just means ‘you are noisy’ but the context is important so when it translate to english it became ‘shut the fick up’ because they have the same energy(expression or level)

13. We all probably got the word from the same video