精一杯生きる seiippai ikiru Live Life
精一杯生きる (seiippai ikiru), live with all you have, is ordinary modern Japanese: the adverb 精一杯, first cited from a puppet play of 1766, set before the verb of living. Its dictionary form is how a resolution is written, a statement of what one means to do rather than an order.
Abstract
精一杯生きる, seiippai ikiru, live with all you have, is plain modern Japanese: the adverb 精一杯, to the limit of one's strength, first cited from a puppet play of 1766, set before 生きる, to live, in its dictionary form. It is grammatical and reads at once, and none of the public-domain books the National Diet Library's full-text search reaches prints it.
Overview
The sense. Plain spoken Japanese, the verb in the dictionary form, which is how a resolution is written. 精一杯生きる, live with all you have, is ordinary modern Japanese that happens not to be printed in the books the full-text search reaches; it is grammatical and reads at once.
The words. 生きる ikiru, to live. デジタル大辞泉: 人間・動物などが、生命があり活動できる状態にある。生命を保つ。生存する, to be in the state of having life and being able to act; to keep life; to exist, then to make a living, then to live in or for something, 研究一筋に生きる. 精選版日本国語大辞典 cites it from the 宇治拾遺物語 of about 1221, この里の人々、とく逃げのきて命いきよ, people of this village, flee quickly and live [1]. 精一杯 seiippai: 持っている力のすべてを出すこと。力のかぎり。できるかぎり, putting out all the strength one has; to the limit of one's strength; as much as one can, an adverb, first cited from a 1766 puppet play [2].
The text in English. The English words are the same words. Live covers 生きる exactly [3] [4]; the difference is in what each language does without a subject. An English live with no subject is an imperative, and 精一杯生きる is not: the Japanese dictionary form is a statement of what one does or intends, which is why the phrase reads as a resolution rather than a command, and why a rendering should not put an exclamation mark after it.
The historical record
What is not a source. No Japanese text stands behind it. 精一杯生きる returns no page in the Library's full-text search of its public-domain books [5]; it is ordinary modern Japanese that happens not to be printed there.
Today. What a rendering must keep is the verb's mood: a resolution, not an order.
A reading
精一杯生きる is honest modern Japanese: an adverb of a 1766 puppet play set before the verb of living, a resolution in the dictionary form. It has no printed past in the books read here, and what it says, it says at once.
References
- 「生きる」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/生きる
- 「精一杯」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/精一杯
- JMdict (EDRDG), 「生きる」, at jisho. https://jisho.org/word/生きる
- JMdict (EDRDG), 「精一杯」, at jisho. https://jisho.org/word/精一杯
- National Diet Library next-generation full-text search on 精一杯生きる, searched again 26 September 2026: 0 books. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?searchfield=contentonly&keyword=精一杯生きる