The One Expression That Epitomizes the Japanese Approach to Life

Forget wabi-sabi, ikigai, and kintsugi. This is the one phrase to really understand Japan.

Image created by Yuko Tamura. Used by Permission.

When you study introductory Japanese, you learn a set of daily expressions: konnichi wa, sumimasen, gomen nasai, arigatō...

But there’s one critical expression missing from the introductory textbooks. One expression you not only hear every day, but epitomizes the attitude to life in Japan.

Shikata ga nai — 仕方がない

This expression is so common, so widely used in every situation, there are multiple ways to say it:

• shikata ga arimasen (polite)
• shikata ga nai (informal)
• shō ga nai (casual)
• shānai (Kansai-ben)

But what does this ubiquitous expression mean?

Shikata ga nai is hard to translate into English since there’s nothing similar in our language.

The closest equivalent is actually from French: c’est la vie. We use the French because we couldn’t come up with an English expression of our own. The French translates literally to “That’s life…”