Japanese Texting Slang: Kusa, Ri, and “Ojisan Style”

Japanese texting writes laughter as grass, 草くさ (kusa), and compresses “got it” into the single character り (ri). Japan's most famous texting style belongs to middle-aged men.

That style is so recognizable it has its own name, and so beloved it became a national running joke.

Here is a young texter's short reply to a friend's complaint:

「今日、電車混みすぎ」「それな」「きょう、でんしゃこみすぎ」「それな」 (‘kyou,denshakomisugi’‘sorena’)

“Trains today are way too packed.” “I know, right?”

Short replies like それな (sorena) belong to fast chats with friends, and reading them is the first skill to build. Do not use them in work messages, in email, or with a stranger, where standard Japanese and standard punctuation are expected.

None of this appears in textbooks. Texting Japanese is its own dialect, with its own spelling of laughter, its own economy of effort, and its own generational accents. Reading it is a separate small skill from reading Japanese.

This guide decodes the essentials: the abbreviations you'll actually receive, the grass, and the surprisingly emotional politics of the period. It also gives a full anatomy of the legendary おじさん構文おじさんこうぶん (ojisankoubun), “ojisan style.”

One note before we start: this is a field guide for reading. What you should type yourself is a shorter list, and it's marked clearly below.

Young Japanese texting is ruthlessly efficient. 了解りょうかい (ryoukai) (“understood”) was shortened to りょ (ryo), and then to り (ri) alone.

A friend texts you the plan, you reply り (ri), done. It's the thumbs-up of Japanese chat.

The same economy produced おつ (otsu), the all-purpose “good work today” clipped from お疲れおつかれ (otsukare). It also produced それな (sorena), the one-word “exactly, so true” for when you agree with a friend's complaint. Add 草くさ (kusa) for laughter, and you can take part in a group chat with about four syllables a day.

Notice what this dialect values: speed and low ceremony between people who already trust each other. Keep that in mind — it's the exact opposite of what you'll meet at the other end of the generational spectrum.

The evolution goes like this. Written Japanese marked laughter with 笑わらい (warai) in parentheses — “(laughs),” like a stage direction. Online, typists shortened it to the letter w (from warai), and stronger laughter stacked it: www, wwww.

Then someone looked at wwww and saw a lawn — rows of little blades sticking up. So laughter became 草くさ (kusa), “grass”: 草くさ (kusa) means “lol,” and for something truly hilarious, 草生えるくさはえる (kusahaeru) (“grass is growing”). For maximum laughter there's even 大草原だいそうげん (daisougen) — “the great prairie.”

All three generations of the joke are still alive: w and www remain common, 草くさ (kusa) is everywhere. You now understand a message that consists, in its entirety, of one botanical character.

Here's the subtlest item in the decoder, and a genuinely recent shift. In rapid chat, young texters mostly skip the sentence-final period (。) — messages end where they end. Which means that when a period does appear, it can sound deliberate: formal, distant, or quietly annoyed.

A curt わかりました。 (wakarimashita.) from someone who usually writes りょ (ryo) can feel abrupt and final. The phenomenon has been widely discussed in Japanese media in recent years, sometimes under the half-joking name マルハラ (maruhara), “period harassment.” Older texters were baffled to learn their ordinary punctuation was being taken as mood.

For you as a learner: keep writing full punctuation in anything formal — emails, messages to teachers, workplaces. This nuance belongs to fast casual chat between friends, and even there it's a tendency, not a law. Nobody reasonable is grading your periods.

At the opposite pole from り (ri) sits a style so distinctive that Japanese internet culture gave it a name. That name is おじさん構文おじさんこうぶん (ojisankoubun), “ojisan style,” sometimes translated “the ojisan construction.”

Ojisan is the friendly word for a middle-aged man. It's the texting voice of the enthusiastic uncle, and once you can spot it, you'll never unsee it.

A specimen you might receive: ヤッホー (yahhoo)☀️ 久しぶりだネひさしぶりだね (hisashiburidane)😊 おじさんは今日、おじさんはきょう、 (ojisanhakyou,)美味しいラーメンを食べたよおいしいラーメンをたべたよ (oishiiraamenwotabetayo)🍜✨ 今度一緒に行こうネこんどいっしょにいこうね (kondoisshoniikoune)😉 ナンチャッテ (nanchatte)😅

Here are the field marks you'll see, in order: a chirpy opening, then an emoji after nearly every clause. Sentence endings switch to katakana, ネ (ne) instead of ね (ne), for a playful look. The writer refers to himself in the third person as おじさん (ojisan).

Then an unprompted report of his own day, an invitation, and the signature ナンチャッテ (nanchatte) (“just kidding”) that takes the invitation back. Length is a feature too, and where a younger texter sends five words, ojisan style sends a paragraph.

The style isn't random. It's a fossil record. Today's ojisan generation learned to text on flip phones, where messages were emails.

They had subject lines. They took effort to type. Decorating them with pictograms and glitter, a whole craft of it in the 2000s, was how you showed warmth.

Long, ornamented, complete: that was good texting.

Their kids grew up inside chat apps, where conversation is a stream of tiny bubbles and warmth isn't decoration — it's responding fast. Same language, two opposite ideas of what a caring message looks like. The emoji cloud looks like effort to one generation and like effort in the wrong place to the other.

Which is why the meme is ultimately affectionate: everyone recognizes their own dad in it. Young people trade parody ojisan texts precisely because the style radiates a clumsy, sincere friendliness — and plenty of them deploy a ナンチャッテ (nanchatte) ironically themselves.

Now the practical sorting. り (ri), おつ (otsu), それな (sorena), 草くさ (kusa), and w are safe with friends in casual chats, and only there.

In work messages, emails, or anything with a stranger, write standard Japanese with standard punctuation. Texting slang in a formal channel reads far worse than no slang at all.

Ojisan style is different. It's for reading, not for typing. Sending it sincerely would make you a walking parody, and even sending it as a joke requires timing that's risky in a second language.

File it with role language from fiction, a style you recognize with delight and leave alone. And remember that texting slang ages fastest of all slang: today's 草くさ (kusa) will eventually be someone's dated habit too.

The decoder, in one screenshot:

Use り (ri), おつ (otsu), それな (sorena), and 草くさ (kusa) only in casual chats with friends.

Write standard Japanese with standard punctuation in work messages and with strangers.

Read おじさん構文おじさんこうぶん (ojisankoubun) for pleasure, and do not type it yourself.

Texting slang is a reading skill, and reading skills grow by exposure. Group chats, comment sections, and casual social feeds will give you り (ri) and 草くさ (kusa) within minutes. Every specimen you decode on sight is one less moment of staring at a one-character message in confusion.

Start now, in a safe environment. The slang quiz below covers the spoken essentials, such as やばい (yabai) and めっちゃ (metcha), and it includes the texting habits from this guide. See how much of the dialect you already read.