The Most Common Japanese Expressions - sugoi
sugoi (great)
Japanese people often seem easily impressed and frequently display this by clapping like trained sea lions and exclaiming ‘sugoi!’ (that’s great!). In particular, things like magic tricks and new gadgets are guaranteed to get this reaction. Where foreigners are concerned, being able to use chopsticks or speak a few words of Japanese is often enough to elicit a round of applause and a chorus of ‘sugoi!’.
As well as being used to denote the remarkableness or importance of something, sugoi – like the English word ‘great’ – can also be used to talk about a large number/amount or the extent of something. Examples of this usage include sugoi hito (lots of people) or sugoi ame (heavy rain), but as with the use of ‘great’ in English, care needs to be taken when using the expression in this sense to avoid statements like ‘the number of car crashes on this road is great.’