Questions tagged [culture]
文化. Where the linguistic aspects of Japanese culture and the cultural aspects of the Japanese language overlap.
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Any reason "Naniwa musume" is used to refer to a girl in modern times (as opposed to "Oosaka musme")?
Naniwa is an antiquated name for what is now referred to as the Oosaka region (It was called Naniwa around the 1500s last, if I'm not mistaken).
That being said, In Shinya Shokudo S3E04 (released in ...
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Is ニュー・ハーフ considered a derogatory/offensive term in Japan for a transsexual individual?
Also, as a follow-up, is it used solely to refer to MtF trans individuals? From what I've read online in Japanese, that seems to be the case, but I just wanted to confirm. And if so, what is the most ...
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readings of north, south, east, west?
This sentence appeared here:
https://www.asahi.com/articles/DA3S15638672.html?iref=comtop_Opinion_05
日本語【にほんご】では東西南北【とうざいなんぼく】だが、中国語【ちゅうごくご】では東南西北【とうなんせいほく】と書【か】く。一方【いっぽう】で、英語【えいご】では北南東西【きたなんとうにし】の順【...
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How to tell someone to call you by a certain name, but they're free to use whatever suffix they please?
Say my name is Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but since that name is obviously nuts, they can feel free to call me by my nickname "スーパ". But I don't mean for them to just refer to me as ...
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How should I read 帖合・書店印 and what is it?
帖合・書店印
There are cards in my books called 注文カード and it's written on them. I can't type the first word automatically and I don't know how to read 印 since it has two pronunciations: しるし, いん.
ちょうあい・...
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八光流柔術 and traditionnal light spectrum vision
On the Hakkoryu Jujutsu website we can read
The name “Hakkoryu” is based on a philosophical Japanese view of the color spectrum as being divided into nine bands of light. The eighth shade is infrared,...
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What is 上寿し and how is it pronounced?
I encountered it here
https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/local/michinoku/20230418-OYT8T50006/
「上寿し【??】」は８００【はっぴゃく】円【えん】、「人生相談【じんせいそうだん】」はゼロ円【えん】
"---" is 800 yen, and "life counseling" ...
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啓発本 (keihatsu-bon) = self-help book = a common word? Any insight on this?
In the latest season (S6) of Boku no Hero Academia, basically a mom was trying to help her kid by giving some advice about not having such a chip on his shoulder. But the edgelord kid reacted with &...
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When speaking openly with a group of people, is it okay to speak casually with some and formally with others?
Say that I'm having lunch with my buddy outside, and my boss comes over and starts talking to me. Obviously, with my boss, I'll talk with proper keigo and stuff. But in front of my boss, am I allowed ...
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Where can I find an exhaustive list of Ryūkyūan personal names?
According to Wikipedia, "Okinawan name", speaking about the warabi-naa 童名, the primary personal names of Ryūkyū:
A set of warabi-naa appeared in the very beginning of recorded history and ...
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When speaking to a family (where they all have the same last name), is it okay to refer to people by their first name?
Say I know a woman named Satou Hanako, whom I would refer to as "Satou-san". If I meet her family (mom, dad, big brother, big sister, etc.), and they introduce themselves by name, how should ...
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How would you address a younger step-parent / older step-child?
Like this but way more insane: Younger uncles and aunts (But I believe this sorta happened in House of the Dragon, prequel / spin-off of of Game of Thrones)
Let's say widow Viserys Tanaka had ...
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Why is cactus ’仙人掌'
It seems like a strange word for cactus, (hermit palm??) Is there a cultural background to this?
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What (if anything) does it typically mean when a native speaker switches from casual to keigo with you?
Over the last month, I've been texting daily with someone I met during my recent trip to Japan. We've only used casual language but today, she called me (name) 氏 whereas she has used 君 before. We ...
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Is "strong language" a rating criterion in Japanese entertainment/media?
In the West, "strong language" (e.g. lots of cussing) will net you a higher rating (e.g. rated M) or even get videos on YouTube demonitized. Is there essentially no such concept in Japan? To ...
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Common placeholder names in Japanese
In English, when we give an example and it has to contain a person, there are some default names that we resort to, such as John Doe, John Appleseed, or Alice & Bob. I even found this line on ...
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Are AI's referred to with いる or ある? [duplicate]
For example, would a chatbot be referred to with いる or ある? If I wanted to ask "You have Siri, right?", would I say "Siriがいるだろう" or "Siriがあるだろう".
And what about for the ...
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Why do we translate English song titles to Japanese?
I was reading past rankings of Japanese music charts such as Billboard Japan and Oricon, and I noticed that songs that are from Western pop music are generally written in katakana.
For example:
シェイプ・...
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Is it true step-sibling is translated the same as sibling-in-law?
I often see these weird translations sometimes of sibling-in-law (or sister-in-law or brother-in-law) but what they really mean is step-sibling (or step-sister or step-brother).
I had the strangest ...
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Is Japan's サラダ油 ("salad oil") roughly equivalent to america's vegetable/olive oil?
I was watching a japanese cooking video for eggplant sauteed with miso (ナスのみそ炒め). And they mentioned they were using サラダ油.
My question's are:
Is this a common oil used in Japanese cooking (kind of ...
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The Quintessential Quintuplets: You can't address your parents chichi/haha, but can you refer to your parents as oyaji/otou-san/okaa-san?
According to Yuta (whom I heard is apparently not well regarded in the subreddit r/learnjapanese but eh) in How Anya Speaks Japanese (Spy x Family): You can't address your parents as chichi/haha. ...
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Stubbornly gender-neutral way to address or refer to your older sibling? (Wait a minute...what about non-binary?)
I believe Mandarin, Cantonese, Tagalog/Filipino/Philippine and English (I'm a monolinguist from HK and the Philippines) don't have this, and so Japanese probably doesn't either, but here goes:
Is ...
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Paired tattoos of the "life" kanji (命)
I was looking into the definition of 命 on jisho, and I got really curious about one of the entries.
Other than the usual ones (that I mostly knew about), I found entry number 4 to be quite interesting:...
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How I address a juniour colleague is different from how I refer to the colleague around the colleague's sibling?
From S02E10 of the anime adaptation of the manga The Quintessential Quintuplets:
Above, Miku Nakano (left) is a younger identical quintuplet of Yotsuba Nakano (right). Miku and Yotsuba are high ...
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Kaguya-sama: Changing the way you address someone without your relationship having changed
Question:
Is it common in Japanese to (temporarily? permanently?) change the way you address to someone even if your relationship has not changed because of certain intent say, you want to intimidate ...
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What is the difference between 上代日本語 & 中古日本語 and 古文
I know 上代/中古日本語 are Old/Early middle Japanese, and that 古文 is Classical Japanese, and I know the latter is exclusively written since it's the literary language, but what are the other differences? ...
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Translation of 'Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shōmei Shite Mita' is 'Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It'?
This anime/manga called Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shōmei Shite Mita (seemingly an anime/manga version of the Sheldon and Amy parts of The Big Bang Theory) is translated as 'Science Fell in Love, So ...
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Importance of stroke order and writing kanji
This got me confused:
Various kanji learning sites on the Internet and even books on kanji stress the importance of stroke order while learning new kanji, saying it's highly essential to learn to ...
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"Struggle to the death" Japanese culture
I read an article and it had the word "shinimonogurui". And this is how it was explained:
「死に物狂い」というのは、「生きるか死ぬかというくらいの覚悟を持って全力で物事に当たるさま」を意味している表現なのです
例えば、「死に物狂いで努力し続けた結果、...
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Don't 不吉, 富士通 sound alike? [closed]
Isn't it an issue that 不吉, 富士通 sound alike? At least for non-Japanese speakers. For Western companies, they would avoid any even slight associations with something negative.
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In which year of education is the 々 symbol taught?
A very similar question was asked here: Does 々 have a kanji grade level?
but in the end the main question haven't really been answered, and the best answer was "you don't need to know".
Well,...
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In what unit is the length of Japanese texts measured?
In English, we measure the length of texts in words. 1,000 words for the average college essay, 50,000 for something like a fiction novel.
I’m wondering what unit is used to measure Japanese texts. I’...
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Is おたくじじい a proper term to describe an old man who's into anime or is there another slang term for it?
So as the question states, is おたくじじい a proper term to describe an old geezer otaku or is there a better alternative?
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Using nicknames or first name with high school peers
I have a story set in Japan with Japanese high schoolers (around the ages 17-18). One of them is called Kiwatamura (family name) Ryuko (first name). He is Japanese and lived there as a kid but he ...
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When is it overkill to use suffix 先生{せんせい} when addressing someone in Japanese?
When I meet a lawyer (弁護士{べんごし}) or physician (医師{いし}) in Japan, I address them using the (augmentative) suffix 先生{せんせい}. To be clear, I am not a lawyer, physician, or teacher. (I read about how ...
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How to write and sing Shigin (Japanese way of chanting poem) properly?
1, Should Shigin be written in Yamato (old Japanese language)? Or an even older version of Japanese? Can I write it in modern Japanese?
2, Are there rules for Shigin? Such as setting rhythms, melodies,...
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Best Bible translation for my Japanese grandmother? [closed]
I will also be posting this in the Christianity site but I don’t feel like it fits very well in either category. If you can think of a better stack exchange site please let me know.
Some background:
...
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How should I start learning Japanese as a total beginner and a native English speaker? [closed]
I am thinking of moving to Japan in the future, and I know that I will have to pass JLPT exams in order to get a job. So how should I start learning?
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Trying to make sense of a sentence in Akutagawa's "Hell Screen"
Towards the end of chapter 10 of Akutagawa's Hell Screen,
その度にばさ／＼と、凄じく翼を鳴すのが、落葉の匂だか、滝の水沫とも或は又猿酒の饐ゑたいきれだか何やら怪しげなものゝけはひを誘つて、気味の悪さと云つたらございません。
Source
which translated to
The flattering of wings is ...
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Is there a story behind drawing a face with の as eyes, も as a nose and へ as a mouth?
In the first episode of the Zatoichi series there is a scarecrow whose face is drawn using various hiragana.
When I seen it it occurred to me that I've seen that done somewhere else before.
Is there ...
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ゆ has connotations for hot water and bathhouses, are there other examples of this shorthand?
You often see hiragana ゆ in bathhouses, and after reading this answer, I think I understand why. I have noticed hiragana nu ぬ at festivals on banners, and wondered what do these characters represent ...
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Definition of 'Scramble Road'
I was watching an MMD on YouTube called 'Tokio Funka' created by PizaCG and quite enjoyed the fact that they included an English language translation in the Closed Captions. I was able to lookup most ...
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Help me understand the first three lines from 松任谷由実’ｓ 「甘い予感」
あなたの耳のむこう
夕日がきれいね
息をかけたら消えそう
Source: http://j-lyric.net/artist/a000c13/l00f5ed.html
Song on the Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9Zm8sorINQ
Translating the three lines literally
The sun ...
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Cultural question: Why「本当？」and「んだ？」are so popular?
This style of communication is very different from English.
When saying something to someone, 本当？？ is a common response.
Also, for example if someone said 決めた！, a common response might be 決めたんだ！
できた！...
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Why is "学校があるからお休みが染みるんだなあ" a poem?
I was reading a web manga, and came across this panel:
The spring break (春休み) has just started for this character, and apparently she refers to the following as poem (as in 詩を詠んでしまった):
学校が
...
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Small あ after は?
I’m trying to read a book but I came across a sentence where there are small あs after はs and I’m not sure why. Do you know why that is and what it means?
その時【とき】、子供【こども】たちの声【こえ】が聞こえました【きこえました】。
「...
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Do Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi have a collective title in Japanese?
When reading up on Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi I often see them referred to as the "great unifiers" but I can't find what (if anything) Japanese people call them?
Is there ...
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Is there a meaning associated with upside-down kanji?
I'm watching an anime ("The Irregular at Magic High School"), and in one scene (Season 1, Episode 23, 0:45), the kanji 福 ("good fortune": https://jisho.org/search/%E7%A6%8F%20%23kanji Colors are ...
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A question about 依り代
I was reading a few articles about 依り代 and there's one thing I'm wondering about. Most of what I read say that 'yorishiro' are objects or sometimes people that attract kami. The following is just my ...
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