マイペース

1970 is the printed point given by Seisenban Nihon Kokugo Daijiten for マイペース: Kunimitsu Shiro's Shinkaigyozoku groups マイ・カー, マイ・ホーム, and マイ・ペース as 三マイ主義. The form uses English my plus pace, but Japanese dictionaries label it wasei eigo. In English, pace is a noun for speed, progress, step, or tempo, not a ready-made personality label. In postwar consumer and office language, マイペース moved beyond speed. It came to describe a person's own progress, method, or temperament in work, study, sports, and relationships. The word belongs to the same social vocabulary as マイカー and マイホーム, where my marks private preference or personal control rather than a direct English sentence pattern. By the 1970s, it could fit both company talk and everyday character description. Modern Japanese can be neutral, positive, or mildly critical. マイペースな人 may mean someone steady and independent, or someone who ignores group timing. Cambridge Japanese-English translates it as one's own pace. English normally uses at one's own pace for speed and in one's own way for method; My pace is not used as an adjective for personality. A sentence such as He is my pace does not match standard English. Example: 彼は会議でもマイペースだ.