"Don't Change a Thing" in Japanese

When you want to tell someone something’s just right and don’t touch it, we’ve got a lot of expressions in English:

We might say

Just like that, Leave it just like that, Leave it alone, Don’t touch it, Don’t change a thing, It’s perfect the way it is, It’s fine as is, It’s good just like that, That’s exactly right, Don’t mess with it, No need to change anything, That’s how it should be, Keep it just like that, That’s perfect, That’s the way I like it.

But Japanese has one ultra-simple word for exactly this case: mama.

You’ll most commonly encounter this in the expression そのまま (sono mama, just like that), or このまま (kono mama, just like this). Or You could say いつものまま (itsu-mo no mama, just like always).

But it can also refer to something remaining in a undesirable state, like 靴を履いたまま (kutsu wo wo haita mama, coming into a room with your shoes on), or テレビをつけたまま寝ちゃう (terebi wo tsuketa mama nechau, go to sleep with the TV on).

MAMA in classical Japanese

Where does this word come from? It dates way back to classical Japanese. Here’s an excerpt from Tsurezuregusa:

高き家の子として、官位爵位心にかなひ、世の中盛りにおごりならひぬれば、学問などに身を苦しめむことは、いと遠くなむおぼゆべかめる。戯れ遊びを好みて、心のままなる官爵に昇りぬれば、

This refers to a high-born son neglecting his studies, living the high life at his parent’s expense; the 心のまま means literally “doing anything his heart wants”; in other words, indulgent, spoiled, eogistic, selfish.

Why are we not surprised that Keene gets this wrong, imagining it says:

and when he rose in rank and title according to his own inclinations

When it should say he “rose to a high rank and title but with no self-discipline”.

Ultimate derivation of MA

mama has a ridiculously simple etymological derivation. It’s MA-MA, where MA is “true” or “accurate” or “real” or “as is”. If we were to write it in kanji it would be 真真. Repeating words like this is called “reduplication” (重複系, chōfukukei) and is a hallmark of Japanese (but also many other languages).

Some scholars believe that mama was originally ma-ni-ma. That makes sense; it could be glossed as “really real.”

We discussed this 真 in Believing in Japanese, where we noted that it could also be considered to mean “exact”. You know, “exactly like that”.

Listen closely and you’ll hear people slipping an extra beat in the midde of mama, making if MA-M-MA, まんま. That’s usually for emphasis, and you’re likely to hear kids saying it that way. Try it yourself for fun, but not at a board presentation.

Homework of the day: What is the relationship between mama and wagamama (我がまま)?