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17
Say what? Putting aside the fact that this sounds like a whitewashed description of sexual assault, at what point in history was this "practice" so common that it was given a name?
I don't know when it started, but the word originally comes from [呼ばう]{よばう} and is more commonly written as [夜這い]{よばい}. It is an old Japanese custom that was common up until ...
14
Politeness and Keigo are strongly related, but they are not necessarily the same, neither does one contains all cases of the other.
Politeness (丁寧語 teineigo) is a general term that is used for gauging the acceptability of different forms in different situations. Polite forms are expected to be used in formal situations, with most strangers, with peers you ...
13
"That seems like a somewhat different movie" would be
なんだか違う映画みたいだなあ
Whereas "I want to see a different movie" would be
なんだか違う映画をみたいなあ
So to answer your question directly, yes, "を見たい" means "want to see" -- and you'd use the kanji "見たい", in most general cases. (There's no だ after みたい in this case.)
When you want to say "is like", you'd say "みたい" ...
13
The PR does indeed stand for public relations. In English it is almost exclusively a business term used to represent a companies goals to persuade the public, employees, and other stakeholders to maintain a certain point of view about it, its leadership, products, etc.
In Japanese it has the same meaning, only it can be applied to areas other than ...
12
Expanding on @TsuyoshiIto's comment above, がる basically turns an イ-adjective (or "words which conjugate like" them, as he states) into a verb. Essentially means "acting this way" or "behaving in such a way":
寒【さむ】がる → To be cold (さむがり: a person who is always cold -- like me); "acting that you are cold"
怖【こわ】がる → To be afraid of something; "behaving ...
11
First, concurring with Axioplase: だく is for tangible things, いだく is for abstract things. (Daijisen has a usage note under 抱える that deals with this distinction.)
With regards to your second question, yes, だく can have the connotation of "sleep with" (second sense in the Daijisen definition for 抱く). It's a somewhat "nicer" way to say "sleep with" in the sense ...
11
Well, first, I think that うだく is archaic, as I read it:
〔上代語「むだく」の転で、「だく」の古形。平安鎌倉時代の漢文訓読にだけ見える語〕
Then, だく seems to be use for concrete situations, when you really use your hands.
いだく seems to be
a more literary reading, or
used in abstract situations, like
「理想を―・く」「不安を―・く」. This is exactly your sentence, isn't it?
Sources: on-line dictionaries ...
11
Strictly speaking, 鍵{かぎ} is key and 錠{じょう} is lock. However, in daily speech, 錠 is hardly ever used. Usually, people will say 鍵 to mean either key or lock, and the context will make it clear which one it is.
However, the じょう reading does appear in several common combinations:
施錠{せじょう} (to) lock
開錠{かいじょう} unlock
南京錠{なんきんじょう} padlock
10
In a Japanese context, that distinction does not matter so much, and it can be either. Since you are asking whether that Japanese word is ambiguous, I think that you are biased to English mind. It is not that the word 髭 is ambiguous; it is that a single concept in English does not match a single concept in Japanese. This is similar to fingers vs. thumbs. ...
10
It's one of those terrifically vague statements that doesn't mean much by itself. It can mean anything, depending on the context and how well the listener knows the speaker and what he's talking about. The speaker may be stalling while he's thinking about what he's trying to say. He may be talking about something that was mentioned before in the ...
10
Your example says he grew facial hair. If it's a Japanese person, I would even dare say that it unambiguously refers to a beard, since I haven't seen many moustaches recently in Japan (beside mines), while I keep seeing guys struggling to get a beard :)
The unambiguous words you can use are:
顎鬚 chin beard
鼻髭 moustache
口髭 moustache
山羊髭 goatee
揉み上げ ...
9
Let me add a little about the spelling つまづく. It is an alternate (secondary) spelling of つまずく, and not necessarily an old spelling as stated in other answers.
This verb was etymologically a compound word made of つめ and つく with a vowel mutation (つめ→つま) and rendaku (つく→づく). In the historical kana orthography, it was written as つまづく, reflecting the fact that ...
9
The ただいま that you say when you arrive home is a contraction of ただ今帰りました. (ただ=たったjust / 今=now / 帰りました=(I) came back/came home /returned)
I think one other situation you're talking about might be where you say 'ただいま', 'Certainly, sir'/'Yes sir, I'll do that right away'/'Yes, I'll be right with you' etc., when someone tells you to do something or calls you, ...
9
Short answer: Both readings have the same meaning. Whether you consider かいしゅん as a valid reading of 買春 or not depends on what you count as “valid.”
Some Sino-Japanese words have not only an on reading which is shown in dictionaries as the primary reading but also an alternative reading which avoids ambiguity with some other words. 買春 is such a word. ...
8
Your statement
わけ is not a reading for 理由. 理由 is only read りゆう
is too strong. りゆう is the most natural reading, but it can also be read as わけ. Although, it is true that, as with your example 妻 with ワイフ, furigana sometimes departs from its established reading under expectation of some rhetorical effects.
why わけ for 理由?
Because りゆう and わけ both mean ...
8
The way I understand it is that 錠{じょう} is generally used for "lock" and 鍵{かぎ} for "key". 鍵 can mean "lock" in some contexts however (this is almost certainly incomplete):
鍵を掛ける - to lock (something)(literally something like "turn a key on (something)")
鍵が掛かっている/鍵が掛かった - (something) is locked
鍵を開ける - to unlock (something)
鍵を取り付ける - "install a ...
8
ari-ki is the verb ar- "be, are" plus the recollectional past suffix -ki. The recollectional sense is all but lost and is essentially just a past tense now. -ki is not used much in modern Japanese except for fossilized patterns such as ariki and omoiki ya. ariki means that something was there; essentially atta.
Your examples:
mazu wa keturon ariki: This ...
7
つまむ can mean "to grab," so anything you can just grab casually and eat (usually with some sort of alcohol), or anything you can つまむ, is therefore おつまみ. There's lots of words that are just the noun conjugation of verbs, especially in food! (おにぎり、煮物、おひや... okay, not all of those follow the pattern, but you get the idea!) There's also another word つまみ食い, which ...
7
敬語 comes from the union of the Kanji 敬 which means "awe, respect, honor, revere" and 語 which means "word, speech, language"; it means "respectful language", it's a form of honorific speech, so here you can start to see the difference.
Politeness, in English, apart from being "the practical application of good manners or etiquette", it also refers to some ...
7
Changing the consonant 's' (or 'sh' derived from it) into 'p' is sort of a diminutive. It gives the impression of cuteness/childishness. So the original form is おもしろかった. An English equivalent would be saying doggie for 'dog', etc. These forms are not at all the standard way of talking. A famous example is what came to be called ノリピー語 'Noripii-ish' in the ...
7
Most of the listed words imply some insincerity, or at least mixed motives, with the possible exception of 美辞麗句. Roughly, the nuances are as follows:
お世{せ}辞{じ}: Praising someone to make them feel better (despite their poor showing)
"Honey, that's a fantastic drawing, I don't care if it got a C-".
煽{おだ}て（る）: Praising someone to egg them on:
You're ...
7
[This answer is based on my personal (inner) research]
In a nutshell, all the extended uses of たつ derive from a single meaning, which is not exactly what you'd imagine from the English word "stand".
As illustrated below, my inner image for たつ is "suspended-perpendicular-upward". "stand" is the opposite: "suspended-perpendicular-downward". Yes, their ...
7
It means to acknowledge, in the middle of doing something, that it has turned out impossible for one to reach the goal, or that one has lost against an opponent, due to lack of one's own ability or luck, and to give up.
Often, but not always, this word is used in the context of a competition, such as swordsman fighting. If it is obvious that you lost, but ...
7
I think 文盲 would be the best translation to describe someone who can't read or write, and 無学 would be the best word for someone uneducated and ignorant.
I don't think I've ever seen the words 無筆、一文不通、一文不知... I didn't even know how to read the latter two... (Maybe because I'm just so ignorant...)
As for 活字離れ, I think it's a rather new word, describing the ...
6
In this particular case, I can see quite straghtforward correspondence between English and Japanese. But 泥棒 is also the cover term that can be used to widely refer to all of these.
空き巣 'burglar'
強盗 'robber'
泥棒 'mugger'
盗人 'thief'
スリ 'pickpocket'
ハンバーグラー 'Hamburglar'
Writing it in hiragana does not change the nuance.
There is a ...
6
As with many odd slang words and phrases, it came from a quote in a particular situation.
"The distance between kneesocks and mini skirt is invicible! I can even say that it's the God's Absolute Territory..."
From: http://en.dic.pixiv.net/a/Absolute+Territory
6
そうりつ「創立」 is used for foundation/establishment of buildings (refer to physical items, have some sense about first time establishment one's life or pioneer alike)
この学校は1970年に創立された This school was founded in 1970.
せつりつ「設立」 is used for foundation/establishment of organized associations (kind of logically, general word)
この協会は自然保護のために設立された This ...
6
It is the slang used amoung young people in Okinawa, kanji "意味" was not used in original phrase, but katakana is used instead.
イミ or イミヨー means "意味がわかんない" in Okinawa dialect, also "イミクジピーマン" is one form.
And looks like some people use ~ピーマン in end of the phrase in Okinawa.
refs:
http://www.okinawainfo.net/uchinaguci1.htm
...
6
(This is a longer version of my comment on YOU’s answer.)
Let me state an objection to what seems to be a popular theory about the origin of 蝶よ花よ, which YOU also stated as (not main) part of the answer.
As YOU said, a few (actually more than a few) pages claim that the phrase 蝶よ花よ appeared in the form 花や蝶や in Makura no Sōshi (completed in 1002). However, ...
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