木村：すみません。明日から一ヵ月休暇をいただきたいのですが。
部長：急にとんでもないことを言いだすんだね。今一番忙しい時なのに。
Tondemo nai
Kimura: Sumimasen. Ashita kara ikka-getsu kyuuka wo itadakitai no desu ga.
Buchoo: Kyuu ni tondemo nai koto wo iidasun da ne. Ima ichiban isogashii toki nano ni.
Kimura: Excuse me. Do you think I could take a month's vacation, starting from tomorrow?
Department chief: What a thing to come out with right out of the blue! This is our most hectic period, too.
Tondemo nai means unreasonable or unthinkable, absurd, outrageous or ridiculous. It can also convey the idea that something is far from the truth.
In fact, this expression can be used in avariety of contexts. Often, as in the conversation above, it serves to show the speaker's surprise at what someone has said or done.
Lately, Japanese employees have been allowed to take longer vacations than before. But it still doesn't amount to much longer than a week during the summer o-bon festival, and another week or around New Year's. Asking for a whole month off all at once is, in other words, tondemo nai mooshide (an unthinkable request).
Of course, if you were ill, say, and had to go into hospital, you wouldn't be refused - and this is What Kimura did. He said thathe was sick in hospital. Tondemo nai uso wo tsuite kaisha wo ikka-getsu mo yasunde shimatta (He told an outrageous lie and took the whole month off work). However, his superiors realized straight away what he was up to. Although he wasn't actually fired from his job, he was demoted and transferred to the files and records section.
"I spent a month taking it easy in Nepal," he explained as he flicked throueh his photo album. "If I hadn't done something like this, I wouldn't have got a proper vacation until the day I retired."
In Japan, what Kimura did is denounced as tondemo nai kooi (outrageous conduct). If the same thing had happened in Germany or the United States, I imagine that his entitlement to the month's holiday would have been seen as part of his inalienable rights as an employee.
This expression can also be used in conversation to show disagreement with another speaker's argument. Nihon-jin ga kane-mochi nante, tondemo nai (To say that the Japanese are all well off is ridiculous). The cost of living is high and the price of land is outrageous; living space is cramped, and work hours are long.
I feel sorry for the Japanese.