casual speech: teka

When I talk to my Japanese friends, I often find them using the expression 'teka'(てか） or 'tteka'（ってか）.

For example, the sentence
'てか一緒に夕食食べ行こうぜ’

My question is, is this the more casual equivalent of 'chinamini' ?

"teka" is short for "te iu ka," or "to iu ka," so it's *very* informal way to say "in other words," but more in the sense of "by the way," "changing the subject." "Chinami ni" is "speaking of that subject," right? This one is more "changing the subject."

In colloquial speech among young people (it shows I'm not one of them lol) I've observed too that they use it very often simply when they come up with something completely different from what they were talking about - even without much meaning, only like "you know, (I've got an idea)" type of thing.

It's the same as "I mean."

Not the one as in "I mean to do this as a favor." but more as in "I mean, what's the big deal?" in which "I mean" doesn't really mean anything.

For example, the sentence
'てか一緒に夕食食べ行こうぜ’simply means, "I mean, let's go out for dinner together." Maybe you two weren't doing or saying anything before this quote, but often people, in particular young people around the world, like to start a sentence with a meaningless "I mean."

I mean, you know what I'm sayin'?

Ak

So you're saying that teka is in fact much closer to 'tokorode' than to 'chinamini'. Hm, I see. I was actually under the impression that teka was used as chinamini, and there's a reason for that.

You see, the funny thing is, when I doubele checked my friends' old messages, they used both teka and tokorode in the same sentence! So it would be 'teka this, and tokorode that' Intuitively, I figured that teka must be something they used when still talking about a new subject within the same subject (while tokorode is bringing up a completely new subject). Especially with 'to iuka' meaning 'in other words'.

Thanks for your explanation too, Uco. About that sentence I used, the 'teka issho ni yuuushoku tabe ikou ze', I distinctly remember that I was actually talking to my friend. We were talking about meeting up pretty soon, and then I got that reply. So again, I thought it must have been like chinamini.

Sorry if I sound so confusing=) Maybe young Japanese people (as in every country in the world) don't always use their own language correctly.

D,

I agree that if you take the origin of the word, it SHOULD be used to mean "in other words," more like "chinamini." But if you think about how it's used, it's not, and it is used in the sense of "by the way," completely changing the subject. ANd I agree that it's used like "I mean..."

I've read a linguist's essay on how this was being used, and that person wrote that this "teka" is a way to not-too-openly bring in a completely different subject lol. If you say "tokorode," it's quite obvious you are changing the subject completely, right? But by saying "...teka," you start off sounding as if you are going to say something related, or to rephrase things, so no offense to everyone around, but in fact going by the substance of the sentence that follows, you are changing the subject completely. :)

There are some word usages that really puzzle me at times, but that's part of life lol.

So I suppose it could've been something like;

You: "Let's get together some time."
Him: "Well, I mean, let's go out for dinner."

in other words,

"Let's get together some time."
"Yes, but let's not just be polite. Make it concrete. What I mean is, how about dinner?"

and he cut the whole "Yes, but let's not just be polite and make it concrete. What I mean is," and turned it into a simple "I mean (teka)"

AK

Well, then that linguistics essay was probably right, because it may exactly be what I had tried to explain earlier! So my intuition wasn't that bad afterall huh. Thanks for letting me know.

Here are just a few references of messages from some friends:

�@そのてん、日本はまだ安心ですよね

てか、ｹｰﾀｲ死にそうです

�A法律!?
めっちゃ難しいやんふらふらあせあせ

てかねぇ、降りた駅周りになんもなくて真っ暗やってん
マンガ喫茶とかないねん

�Bはい。夜更かしです（笑）

てか、もう寝ますｹﾄﾞね

�Cところで、素敵なプレゼントが先週に届いたよ。
私たちも送ったんだけど、まだ届いていないかな？

てか、試験が段々と迫ってきて、怖いよ。

I think �B is the example that shows best how the speaker tried to change the subject in a very subtle way when really it still seemed like she was talking about the same subject.

Uco

Yes, the conversation went something like that. Many thanks for your explanation. Oh by the way, it wasn't a 'him' but a 'she' I was talking to =) I was surprised too at how masculine her language was.

Oh, my! Apparently, someone who says "-ze" had got to be a male. No wonder she didn't say "meshi kuini ikou ze."

I was quite surprised too. But apparently some girls are more masculine than others are eh...