「苦手」: A Bit More Than I Can Handle

When I was learning Japanese, it was easy to remember 「苦手」（にがて, nigate) as “not good at.” If you’re bad at math, you can say 「数学が苦手」. It’s a convenient way to remember it.

Later I noticed that Japanese people also use 「苦手」 for cats, certain foods, even a particular person. Translating it as “not good at” starts to sound awkward. It is closer to saying: this is something I can’t quite handle.

Say I’m visiting a friend. He comes over holding a cat he loves and asks if I want to pet it. I would rather not. I could say 「猫が嫌いです」, or I could say 「猫はちょっと苦手で……」.

The first makes my dislike explicit. The second leaves more open: maybe I’m afraid of being scratched, maybe I’m not used to cats coming up to me so suddenly, maybe I simply don’t like them. I do not have to explain the reason fully. The other person can still understand, more or less, that being around cats makes me uncomfortable.

What I like is that the second phrasing makes it easier for my friend to see that the difficulty is on my side. He brought the cat over because he wanted to share something he loves with me. I do not want to pet it, but I also do not want him to feel that there is anything wrong with his enthusiasm.

It reminds me that some things people say in Japanese sound like a little insurance on what comes next.

Before turning down a plan, you first say 「こちらの都合で……」, making clear the reason is on your side. Before raising a question, you first say 「私の理解が違っていたらすみませんが……」, allowing that you may have misunderstood. When the other person hears a refusal or a doubt, there is a little more room. They do not have to take it, right away, as blame.

These lines seem to take an extra step. But once “I don’t want to” is out, the other person may still wonder: did I do something wrong? Did I make them uncomfortable? If a few more words can let them know that I am simply a little unused to it, and that they did nothing wrong, then those words were not wasted.

「苦手」 is brief, but it can carry a little of that meaning. I do not have to make myself reach out and pet the cat, and my friend can more easily understand that I simply do not do well around cats.

He took the cat back and sat down beside me. We changed the subject and kept talking.