Tuesday, January 29, 2019

わりぃ, 悪ぃ, 悪ィ, ワリぃ, ワリィ

In Japanese, warii 悪ぃ means "sorry" or "my bad" most of the time. It's also spelled 悪ィ, わりぃ, ワリィ, etc. It's a relaxed pronunciation of warui 悪い, so everything warui means warii means too.

悪ィ・・・人違い!
Manga: Holy Land, ホーリーランド (Chapter 1)

Nuance

In manga, characters that used warii 悪ぃ tend to be guys, delinquents, gang members, etc. Since it's colloquial speech, it's not used by more refined characters.

To have a better idea of how the word is used creatively:


Of course, you don't need to be part of an album called "Ghetto Love" to use warii. In reality, more average-looking, non-delinquent-looking guys use it. It's just that in anime and manga the usage tends to be toward delinquent types.

Although both warui and warii can mean "sorry," it's not literally an apology, it's an admission of fault: "I did something bad." Since you're admitting you're wrong, it implies you're apologizing.

Most of the time, warui and warii have the same meaning as suman すまん and gomen ごめん, which are informal versions of sumimasen すみません or gomen nasai ごめんなさい.

But in some cases, warui and warii might sound too weak of an apology for the gravity of the situation. For example: if by accident someone ended up in the hospital, you don't say "oops, my bad." You give a proper apology

Likewise, if a character says warii in a grave situation, other characters may get mad at him for not apologizing properly.

Spelling

Although warui 悪い and warii 悪ぃ look similar they're spelled differently: the relaxed warii is has a small kana in the okurigana:
  • 悪い (warui)
  • 悪ぃ (warii)

To avoid confusion, authors generally write the word in katakana, or, when written with kanji, leave the small kana in katakana:
  • ワリィ (warii in katakana.)
  • ワリぃ (mixed variant.)
  • 悪ィ (warii in kanji with small i ィ in katakana.)

Examples

Although warii often shows up in the "sorry" meaning alone. It's interchangeable with warui. For example:

悪ィ

悪ィ・・・人違い!
Manga: Holy Land, ホーリーランド (Chapter 1)
  • Context: speaker mistakes someone for someone else.
  • warii...
    悪ィ・・・
    [Sorry]...
  • hito-chigai!
    人違い!
    [Wrong] person!
    • Literally "different person," as in, different from the one the speaker thought it was.

ワリぃ

ワリぃ 近藤さん 俺も負けちまったよ
Manga: Gintama 銀魂 (Chapter 9)
  • Context: Hijikata 土方 heard that his boss fought the main character and lost, so he went for revenge, and lost, too.
  • warii
    Kondou-san

    ワリぃ
    近藤さん
    [Sorry,] Kondou-san.
  • ore mo
    makechimatta yo

    俺も負けちまったよ
    I also ended up losing.

ワリィワリィ

もォ~~バカァ!! ワリィワリィ また今度なっ!
Manga: Holy Land, ホーリーランド (Chapter 6)
  • Context: guys leave girls behind because the plot is more important.
  • moo~~~~
    もォ~~
    (expression of frustration, see: mou もう)
    • Come on!
    • Really?
    • Are you serious?
    • etc.
  • bakaa!!
    バカァ!!
    [You] idiot!!
  • warii warii
    ワリィワリィ
    [Sorry, sorry].
  • mata kondo na'!
    また今度な
    [See ya, later, 'kay!]
    • kondo 今度
      Next time. (literally "this time." I'm not even joking. It means this time but means next time. This is just your friendly occasional reminder that Japanese hates you.)

Further Reading

See Also

Refereneces

Adjectives

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