What is the Japanese equivalent of "to pick up a girl" or "to hit on girls"?


How do you say "to pick up girls" in Japanese? I would like to say: I'm going
to go and pick up some girls! I tried: 女を持ちに行くぞ！ But I don't think 持つ is the
right verb to use here




You're right about 女を持ちに行くぞ！ -- that sounds horribly odd, and it quite made me
smile. :) It sounds like a troll going out to literally grab some women and
come home, perhaps to throw them in the stewpot.

### The word

When it comes to picking up girls in a less literal and more figurative sense
:), the word I learned years ago living in Japan was ナンパする. Now that I'm
researching the term, the etymology seems quite interesting too.

### The origins

From what I can glean out of Shogakukan's 国語{こくご}大辞典{だいじてん} and Sanseido's
大辞林{だいじりん}, the kanji spelling is 軟派{なんぱ}, literally _"soft group,
softliner"_. This is (was?) an antonym for 硬派{こうは} or _"hard group,
hardliner"_ , which apparently referred to young men who viewed finer clothes
and interacting with women as effeminate and weak. In contrast, the
_"softliners"_ were young men who enjoyed the company of women and liked
dressing well. Over time, 軟派{なんぱ} seems to have shifted from being used
primarily as a noun as _"this kind of young men"_ to more of a verb use as
_"to be sweet on women"_ and then to _"to seek out members of the opposite sex
for purposes of having fun"_ (loose translation of the Daijirin definition for
sense 5 shown [here](http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E8%BB%9F%E6%B4%BE)).

I have noted that women may also use the term in modern usage, so it may be
more of a general _"to pick someone up"_. (That said, I may be mis-
remembering, or accurately remembering dialectal usage.) There is also
逆{ぎゃく}ナンパ, which does seem to be restricted to meaning a woman picking up a
man.

### The spelling

I've heard this term used in speech much more than I've seen it in writing,
but my general sense is that this word is now more commonly spelled in kana
than in kanji.




You're right about 女を持ちに行くぞ！ -- that sounds horribly odd, and it quite made me
smile. :) It sounds like a troll going out to literally grab some women and
come home, perhaps to throw them in the stewpot.

### The word

When it comes to picking up girls in a less literal and more figurative sense
:), the word I learned years ago living in Japan was ナンパする. Now that I'm
researching the term, the etymology seems quite interesting too.

### The origins

From what I can glean out of Shogakukan's 国語{こくご}大辞典{だいじてん} and Sanseido's
大辞林{だいじりん}, the kanji spelling is 軟派{なんぱ}, literally _"soft group,
softliner"_. This is (was?) an antonym for 硬派{こうは} or _"hard group,
hardliner"_ , which apparently referred to young men who viewed finer clothes
and interacting with women as effeminate and weak. In contrast, the
_"softliners"_ were young men who enjoyed the company of women and liked
dressing well. Over time, 軟派{なんぱ} seems to have shifted from being used
primarily as a noun as _"this kind of young men"_ to more of a verb use as
_"to be sweet on women"_ and then to _"to seek out members of the opposite sex
for purposes of having fun"_ (loose translation of the Daijirin definition for
sense 5 shown [here](http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E8%BB%9F%E6%B4%BE)).

I have noted that women may also use the term in modern usage, so it may be
more of a general _"to pick someone up"_. (That said, I may be mis-
remembering, or accurately remembering dialectal usage.) There is also
逆{ぎゃく}ナンパ, which does seem to be restricted to meaning a woman picking up a
man.

### The spelling

I've heard this term used in speech much more than I've seen it in writing,
but my general sense is that this word is now more commonly spelled in kana
than in kanji.

