There are 2 words you learn early on when learning Japanese, すき(like) and きらい(dis-like). You also learn だいすき (love) and だいきらい (hate).
From there you can see that だい (dai) makes both like and dis-like more extreme.
Some examples are
おん debt of gratitude
そふ grandfather
If you add dai in front of them
だいおん Great debt of gratitude
だいそふ Great grandfather
So when you add dai to a noun it adds an extreme to it. This was hit home with me when I was watching Mei-Chan J-Drama. One of the characters said.
だいピンチ basically daipinchi or in a really big pinch with a big problem. Basically, you thought Meisama was about to die basically, so the antagonist said だいピンチ to highlight the predicament.
So when you hear this used in conjunction with a noun remember it means something more extreme or bigger than normal. However, you need to be carefule as dai can alsu be used as a counter when counting specific things. We will hit that later.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
dai-omoshiroi!~ Umm… Does that work too?
Hi, part of me wants to say yes and part of me wants to say no. unfortunately I am on a week long camping trip and don’t have my resources available tome to look it up, and my connection to the net is such that it took me 20 minutes to approve yor comment. I will say that if you say that the point will come across even if it isant technically correct. I will look it up when I get home.