不謹慎 – What does Fukinshin mean?
不謹慎 is a Japanese word for behavior that is considered inappropriate. The word became more commonly used with the growth of social media. Let’s take a look more at what 不謹慎 means and when it is used
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What does 不謹慎 mean?
不謹慎 is a three Kanji word. The first character 不 means no or non- and negates any word it comes before. Meaning, it is a prefix to make negative or opposite words. In the situation of 不謹慎, the 不 makes the original word 謹慎 which means modesty, restraint, etc. into unmodest, unrestraint and so on.
Looking into 謹慎 further, this word is made up of two Kanji which mean the same thing. These two characters come from the verb つつしむ. This verb means to be discreet, careful, or prudent. You can write it as 慎む or 謹む.
Translations of 不謹慎
In English, the situation will change how you translate 不謹慎 but it can become a number of English words. For example:
- Imprudence
- indiscretion
- indiscreet
- immodest
- improper
- unscrupulous
- careless
- inconsiderate
When do People use 不謹慎?
People will usually use 不謹慎 disapproval of some behavior of someone else. For example, let’s say there was some disaster like an earthquake, fire, or even a pandemic or whatever. During this period of time in order to show consideration for people that may have been affected by the disaster certain people may reframe from posting happy pictures, making comments, or whatever that makes them seem unaware of others suffering. But, let’s say that despite the situation, someone decides to make a comment post a picture, or whatever anyway. Someone else may see this and call that behavior 不謹慎.
So, to illustrate this let’s pretend that amidst the COVID-19 pandemic Taro posts a picture of the meal he had on Instagram and says something like, I’m in heaven. Jiro may see this and say something like:
こういう時にこんな写真は不謹慎だ
This kind of picture during this time is inconsiderate/immodest
