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コスパ kosupa
Worth every single yen.
What does kosupa mean?
Cost performance, clipped. The national unit for judging lunch sets, phone plans, and whether that trip was worth the money.
Example
この定食、量も味もコスパが良すぎる。
This set meal is unbeatable value for the portion and the taste.
Vibe
Who you can say this to, and how it lands.
Safe to use Fine in ordinary conversation.
The story behind kosupa
コスパ is cost performance clipped to four beats, and like most wasei coinages it sounds English without being usable in English. It came up through consumer magazines and product reviews before reaching ordinary speech, and the long-stagnant price era gave it a permanent job. When wages hold still, judging value out loud becomes a national pastime.
Today it is applied far past shopping. Restaurants, phone plans, apartments, gym memberships, a university degree, a three-hour film: all go on the same scale. Say コスパ最強 about a lunch set and everyone knows exactly what you mean: not cheap, not luxurious, simply more than you paid for it. Its younger sibling タイパ swapped the currency for time.
Get kosupa in your pocket
コスパ is one of 308 words in YABAI, a Japanese culture snack for Android. Every word comes with its meaning, an example sentence, a vibe check and a story like the one above — in 13 languages, read aloud by your device. Paid app: no ads, no sign-up, no subscription.
