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泣ける nakeru
This one's going to make you cry.
What does nakeru mean?
Not I cried, but it has the power to make anyone cry. A recommendation and a warning packed into one word.
Example
最終回、あそこだけで泣ける。
That one scene in the finale is enough to make you cry.
Vibe
Who you can say this to, and how it lands.
Safe to use Fine in ordinary conversation.
The story behind nakeru
The grammar is doing something specific. 泣ける is the potential form, so the claim is not I cried but this can make people cry, which turns a private reaction into a property of the film. That shift is why the word works as a recommendation.
Japan has built a lot on top of it. There is a recognised genre of visual novels called 泣きゲー, sold on the promise that they will wreck you, and 涙活, gathering deliberately to watch something sad and let go, became a wellbeing trend discussed in the 2010s. Crying is treated as maintenance here, not weakness, and 泣ける is the label on the bottle.
Get nakeru in your pocket
泣ける 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.
