Sometimes people ask me what is a word in a language that I know that I wish English had. There are countless possibilities, but one that stands out is perhaps the Japanese word "yabai". It can be used as an adjective or an exclamation, and it has innumerable possible translations in English. I like this word not only for its versatility, but also because of the specific feeling it carries that no other word in English quite has.

The original meaning is something like "dangerous" or "unfavorable". For example, if you see a car or wild animal coming your way, you might exclaim "Yabai!". Here it would be translated into English as "oh no!" or "look out!". If you suddenly noticed you left your wallet on the train, you can exclaim "yabai!".

If you see someone on the street who looks like a scary or crazy person who could cause you trouble, you can describe this person as "yabai". In this case you may translate it as "That guy looks crazy", or "That guy looks like trouble".

If you notice that you have a colleague who seems to come to work every day looking like they're extremely depressed and maybe about to have an emotional breakdown at the keyboard, you could describe them as "yabai". Here it would mean something like, "That guy is reaching the end of his rope".

If you notice that, based on your scores in the class so far, you need a perfect score on the final to pass the course, you would describe your situation as "yabai". Here it means you're in quite the predicament.

I could think of a hundred other examples.

But starting in the late 90s, "yabai" also started to be used for positive meanings, much like how we use "wicked" or "sick" in slang to describe something we're genuinely impressed with.

For example, I heard a boy exclaim "yabai!" when he was super impressed with the stats of a new pokemon card he received. If you're absolutely floored by someone's skills at something, you can hear them described as "yabai". People might even describe the food they're eating as delicious to a yabai degree.

In short, yabai is the most yabai word I can think of.