Questions tagged [animals]
動物. Japanese vocabulary for animals.
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Non-distinguished animal pairs in Japanese
This is something I first noticed when I was at an aquarium in Japan (as evidenced in my examples) and continued to see ever since. There are certain pairs of animals, that while extremely similar, ...
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How to know when I should use katakana form words referring to animals, lesser creatures, or other organisms?
I know many words for animals are usually written in katakana in contemporary Japanese, even though kanji exist:
イルカ
クマ
And it seems some very common domestic animals I don't seem to notice written ...
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What's the difference between "さけ" (sake) and "しゃけ" (shake)?
Today I saw onigiri claiming to contain "しゃけ" (shake). When I asked my friend what that was, she said it was the same as "さけ" (sake), "salmon".
So are these two just different readings of a kanji, ...
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Why are dogs asked to 「おすわり」 instead of 「すわれ」
In the manga Inuyasha, the heroine Kagome acquires the ability to force the titular Dog-Yokai to fall over by saying 「おすわり」.
I figured this must be a typical dog training command, but I wondered why ...
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Is こんこん onomatopoeia for foxes?
I mentioned こんこん to a native speaker, and he hadn't heard it before.
Is こんこん the standard onomatopoeia for foxes? If not, what does the fox say?
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What's the difference between "マグロ" (maguro), "ツナ" (tsuna), and "シーチキン" (shiichikin)?
It seems that there are (at least) three words for "tuna" in Japanese:
"マグロ" / "鮪" / "まぐろ" (maguro) - Seems to be the native name for the creature and used at least in sushi
"ツナ" (tsuna) - Seems to ...
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Octopus kanji: 章魚 vs 蛸 vs 鮹
I'm trying to determine the most appropriate kanji for タコ (octopus), and have come across three possibilities: 章魚, 蛸, and 鮹.
According to jisho.org, all three possibilities are read as たこ.
The Pocket ...
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