Cool in Japanese

Cool in Japanese is かっこいい, said kakkoii. It is built from 格好 (kakkou), appearance, and いい (ii), good: literally, a good look. 格好 is two kanji, 格 with ten strokes and 好 with six, but the adjective itself is nearly always written in kana. In katakana it becomes カッコイイ, or the popular mix カッコいい.

Cool in Japanese

Cool in Japanese depends on which cool you mean, and English hides three different words inside one.

A six-year-old watching a bullet train pull in says かっこいい! (kakkoii!), cool. That is cool as in impressive, stylish, admirable, and it is the word you want for a person, a car, a guitar solo or a brave decision.

On an October morning, a neighbour says 涼しいですね (suzushii desu ne), it’s cool today, isn’t it? That is cool as in temperature, the pleasant kind. And a cool drink from the fridge is 冷たい (tsumetai), cold to the touch.

The third cool, calm and unflappable, borrows the English word: クール (kuuru). A クールな人 is someone who keeps their head, or keeps their distance, and anime turned that sense into a whole character type, the kuudere.

Kakkoii Meaning

Kakkoii (かっこいい) means cool, good-looking, stylish, impressive. It is said “kahk-koh-ee,” and it works for anyone: a woman who handles a crisis is かっこいい just as much as a man in a well-cut suit. The opposite is かっこ悪い (kakko warui), uncool, embarrassing, and the everyday slang for tacky is ダサい (dasai).

The word underneath is 格好 (kakkou), shape, appearance, the way you look. Its original sense was suitability. The older spelling 恰好 reads as atakamo yoshi, just right, and a shape that fits you well became, over centuries, simply your look. In speech the long vowel wore down to kakko, and kakko plus ii gave the adjective. The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Japan’s largest historical dictionary, cites its first example from a 1963 novel, so this is a modern word.

One grammar point catches learners. いい is irregular, so the past tense is かっこよかった (kakkoyokatta), it was cool, and the negative is かっこよくない (kakkoyokunai), not cool. Never かっこいかった.

To try too hard is 格好をつける (kakkou o tsukeru), or casually カッコつける, to show off, to put on a cool act.

The Kanji for Cool: 格好

• Characters: 格好, read かっこう (kakkou)
• 格: on’yomi カク (kaku), with コウ (kou) in a few words; ten strokes; radical 木 (tree), Kangxi radical 75, six strokes added; taught in fifth grade
• 好: on’yomi コウ (kou); kun’yomi この(む) (konomu), す(く) (suku); six strokes; radical 女 (woman), Kangxi radical 38; taught in fourth grade
• General meaning: appearance, shape, outfit; also suitable, just right
• Older spelling: 恰好, with 恰 (atakamo, just as), a character outside the Jōyō list

There is no single kanji for cool in the stylish sense. The closest thing Japanese has is this pair, and even it is rarely written in the adjective.

Japanese Symbol for Cool

So why is kakkoii almost always kana? Three reasons, and they stack.

The first is the sound. 格好 is read kakkou, with a long o, but the adjective says kakko, short. Write 格好いい and the spelling suggests a word nobody says. The second is history. The original first character was 恰, which is not a Jōyō kanji, so 格 stepped in as the standard substitute, and a substitute spelling never feels fully at home. The third is register. Kakkoii is casual, young and spoken, and kana suits that voice. When a writer wants extra punch, they switch to katakana, カッコいい, the way English might write COOL in capitals.

The characters themselves are worth knowing. 格 is 木 (tree) beside 各, and its oldest sense was branches reaching and tangling. It came to mean a standard, a rank, a proper form, and it is everywhere in serious vocabulary: 性格 (seikaku, personality), 資格 (shikaku, a qualification), 合格 (goukaku, passing an exam), 価格 (kakaku, price). You can see the tree on tree in Japanese.

好 is 女 (woman) beside 子 (child), and it means to like: 好き (suki). The classical Chinese dictionary Shuowen Jiezi glosses it simply as beautiful, which links it to beautiful in Japanese. Its left half is explained on woman in Japanese.

How to Write 格好 in Japanese

Sixteen strokes across two characters, each written left side first.

格 takes ten. The tree radical comes first in four: a horizontal, the vertical through it, a left-falling stroke, and a short dot where the right sweep would be in the full 木. Then 各 in six: a short left-falling stroke, a stroke that runs across and turns down to the left, the long sweep down to the right, and finally the 口 box beneath, left side, then top and right side in one stroke, then the base.

好 takes six. The woman radical comes first in three: a stroke shaped like く, a left-falling stroke, and a horizontal that rises to the right and stops short so it does not crash into the child. Then 子 in three: the stroke that runs across and turns down, the vertical with a hook, and the horizontal across the middle.

In kana, かっこいい is five characters, and the small っ matters. It is half the size of a normal つ and marks the pause in kak-ko. Write it full size and you get katsukoii, which is not a word.

How to Say Cool in Japanese

Kakkoii is five beats: “kahk-koh-ee-ee,” though in speech the last two blur into one long “ee.” The small っ is a held silence, the tiny catch you make between the two k sounds, as in “bookcase.” Young men often flatten it to かっけー (kakkee).

Real sentences:

• かっこいい!(Kakkoii!) Cool! That’s so cool!
• その車、かっこいいね。(Sono kuruma, kakkoii ne.) That car is cool.
• 昨日の試合、かっこよかったよ。(Kinou no shiai, kakkoyokatta yo.) You were great in yesterday’s game.
• 今日は涼しいですね。(Kyou wa suzushii desu ne.) It’s cool today, isn’t it?
• 冷たい水をください。(Tsumetai mizu o kudasai.) Cold water, please.

The temperature words split cleanly. 涼しい (suzushii) is pleasant coolness in the air: an autumn morning, shade in summer, a breeze off the river. 冷たい (tsumetai) is cold to the touch, for drinks, water and hands, and also for people, since a 冷たい人 is cold-hearted. 寒い (samui) is cold weather, the kind that makes you reach for a coat. So cool weather is 涼しい, a cool drink is 冷たい, and a cool person is かっこいい.

Words and Compounds With 格好

That fifth line is the old meaning of 格好 still at work. 格好の場所 is not a stylish place but a fitting one, the right spot for a picnic or an ambush.

And 涼しい顔 has quietly changed meaning in front of everyone. Dictionaries define it as putting on an innocent face about something you are involved in. In the Agency for Cultural Affairs survey for fiscal 2022, only 22.9 percent of people used it that way, while 61.0 percent used it to mean staying calm in a tough situation. The cool-as-a-cucumber sense has won.

Cool in Japanese Culture

Japan had words for cool long before kakkoii. In Edo, the merchant city that became Tokyo, the ideal was iki (粋), a stylish, knowing restraint, the person who wears a plain kimono with a startling lining nobody sees. Later came shibui (渋い), the cool of understatement and age: a 渋い声 is a deep, seasoned voice, and a 渋い actor is one with quiet gravity.

Kakkoii is the twentieth-century word, and it belongs to pop culture. Heroes in manga are かっこいい, and the word sits opposite kawaii as one of the two big compliments Japanese youth culture hands out: cute for what you want to protect, cool for what you want to be. Even the government’s Cool Japan strategy, the push to sell anime, food and design abroad, runs on the borrowed English word.

The calm sense of クール has its own life too. The kuudere of anime, cool on the surface and warm underneath, takes its name from it. And online, cool has its own faces, gathered in our cool kaomoji.

If you came here looking for cool Japanese words rather than the word cool, our guide to Japanese words with deep meaning is the better page.

As a Tattoo

Please do not tattoo かっこいい. It is the equivalent of a tattoo that says “awesome,” and a Japanese reader will take it as a joke, sometimes an affectionate one.

The kanji do not rescue it. 格好 on its own reads as appearance or outfit, so on skin it says roughly “my look.” 格 alone means rank, status or a grammatical case. 好 alone means liking, and reads like a sticker.

Watch the Chinese trap. Mandarin internet slang uses 酷 (kù) for cool, chosen because it sounds like the English. In Japanese, 酷 means harsh and cruel: 残酷 (zankoku) is cruelty, and 酷い (hidoi) means awful. A 酷 tattoo bought as “cool” reads in Japan as “cruel.”

If you want a single character that carries real Japanese cool, 粋 (iki) is the honest choice: ten strokes, a Jōyō kanji, and the whole Edo period of style behind it. It also means essence or purity in compounds such as 純粋 (junsui), which is no bad thing to wear. If you meant cool like a breeze, 涼 (ryou, the 涼 of 涼しい) is lovely and unusual.

Confirm with a native speaker before you ink. You can preview a character in vertical and horizontal layouts with the Japanese Tattoo Generator, and read the wider background in our guide to japanese tattoo meanings.

Related Kanji

• Beautiful in Japanese
• Summer in Japanese
• Winter in Japanese
• Woman in Japanese

For characters that do stand on their own, browse the kanji library.

Sources and Further Reading

• 常用漢字表 (Cabinet Notice No. 2 of 2010), Agency for Cultural Affairs readings and grades of 格 and 好; 恰 is not a Jōyō kanji
• Unihan database entry for 格 (U+683C), Unicode Consortium Kangxi radical 75, ten strokes
• 格好, Digital Daijisen (Kotobank) the atakamo yoshi origin, appearance and outfit, 格好の as suitable, 格好をつける
• 恰好良い, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (Kotobank) definition of kakkoii and its first citation, a 1963 novel
• 涼しい顔, Digital Daijisen (Kotobank) the original sense and the fiscal 2022 Agency for Cultural Affairs survey figures, 22.9 and 61.0 percent

FAQ

How do you say cool in Japanese?

For cool as in stylish or impressive, say kakkoii, written かっこいい. For cool weather, say suzushii (涼しい). For a cool drink or cold water, say tsumetai (冷たい). For calm and composed, Japanese borrows the English word as クール (kuuru). The right word depends entirely on which cool you mean.

What is the kanji for cool?

There is no single kanji for cool. Kakkoii comes from 格好 (kakkou, appearance) plus いい (good), and 格好 is two characters: 格, ten strokes, under the tree radical, and 好, six strokes, under the woman radical. For cool temperature the kanji is 涼, as in 涼しい (suzushii).

Why is kakkoii written in hiragana?

Because the kanji spelling fits badly. 格好 reads kakkou with a long vowel, but the adjective says kakko. The original character, 恰, is not a Jōyō kanji, so 格 is only a stand-in. And kakkoii is casual, spoken Japanese, which kana suits. Katakana カッコいい adds emphasis.

Can you call a woman kakkoii?

Yes. Kakkoii is for anyone who is stylish, capable or impressive, and calling a woman かっこいい is a real compliment, often for confidence or competence. If you mean pretty, use kirei, and for cute, kawaii. The three are different compliments, not stronger and weaker versions of one.

How do you say cool weather in Japanese?

Say 涼しい (suzushii): 今日は涼しいですね, it’s cool today. It describes pleasant coolness, the air on an autumn morning or the shade of a tree in summer. For uncomfortable cold, use 寒い (samui). For something cold to touch, like water or a drink, use 冷たい (tsumetai).

Is there a Japanese symbol for cool?

Not one that means cool in the stylish sense. Japanese uses the word かっこいい, usually in kana. If you want a single character with the spirit of Japanese cool, 粋 (iki), the Edo ideal of effortless style, is the closest real match. 涼 is the symbol for cool as in a cool breeze.