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I ran across this phrase アンハッピーニューイヤーンバカーン spoken by a manga character. Basically I see this reads as "A Happy New Year", but I'm not sure what the addition of ン's mean after ア and ハッピーニューイヤー.

At the end there is also バカーン, which I'm not sure whether it's a sound effect like 'BAM!' or 'idiot', as in 馬鹿（バカ), with the added ン as I mentioned above.

Can anyone help me with this?

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dotto
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  • Can you show us the picture of the page containing this phrase? – fefe Mar 16 '17 at 01:23
  • @fefe Thanks, I edited my post to include a picture. It's in the context of looking at New Years Day cards (年賀状). – dotto Mar 16 '17 at 02:56

1 Answers1

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イヤーンバカーン is an cliched, interjection-like set phrase. いやーん (嫌ーん) literally means "no" or "I dislike it" and ばかーん (馬鹿ーん) is "idiot." It's not a refusal but rather an aged, stereotyped word used when a woman toys or trifle with a man. So the person who said it is childishly and jokingly mimicking a sexy adult woman.

Probably it's a wordplay similar to a classic joke 当たりの前田のクラッカー. It's a type of pun-like wordplay made by combining a totally meaningless phrase. The more meaningless and irrelevant phrase you join, the funnier it will sound. It's technically called a 地口. So that いやーんばかーん part does not really carry an important meaning, and you may even ignore it.

アンハッピーニューイヤー is "Unhappy New Year" rather than "A Happy New Year." That should be another cheesy joke he made. That アン followed by ♥️ is like "oh" or "ah" induced by sexual stimuli.

naruto
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  • Thank you! That all makes sense now. Seems to be one of those very subtle things you learn in the language from growing up in the culture. This was part of a test for a possible translation job. Thanks again for your help! – dotto Mar 16 '17 at 03:06
  • Let's hope that your potential employer doesn't mind StackExchange helping you with your employment test. – virgil9306 Mar 16 '17 at 03:55