Questions tagged [words]
言葉. Any question that does not deal specifically with grammar or pronunciation. Includes questions about prefixes, suffixes, compound words, loanwords, dialectal differences, pragmatic usage, etc. In other words, phenomena that occurs at the level of the word.
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How is the 〒 postal code symbol pronounced?
I know the symbol is placed in front of the postal code. How is it pronounced?
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How many Kanji characters are there?
I have been searching around, but all the sources give completely different answers ranging from 2,000 to 50,000. So my question is how many Kanji characters that have ever existed since the dawn of ...
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What's the difference between 思う and 考える?
These two words both seem to mean "to think", but is there any difference between them? Is it related to the difference between 言う and 話す by any chance?
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Are the days of the week named after the planets?
I was studying the names of the planets and noticed some similarities. Are the days of the week named after the planets?
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How do Japanese understand "non-standard" words without looking at kanji?
This question seems so "obvious" that there might be a duplicate but could not find any.
Anyway, while I try to think how to better rephrase the title, let me explain briefly what I mean.
I'll give ...
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Which is the "official" kanji for さい, 歳 or 才?
Well if I'm not wrong, usually when a word has multiple kanjis one of them is selected as the "main" or more commonly used one.
But is it true that 才 and 歳 are both the "main" kanji for さい?
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For body: 身体 or 体
体{からだ} and 身体{からだ} (or even 躰{からだ}) seem to be used interchangeably, is there a nuance difference between them?
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Are there any Japanese words as versatile as "fuck" in English?
I was wondering about this one recently. "Fuck" in English is famous for being applicable in a wide, wide range of circumstances (none of them formal).
What word in Japanese covers a wide spectrum of ...
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Why is 島 used in the name of some cities?
I can understand "島" being used in 硫黄島 (Iwo Jima/Iwo To, literally "Sulphur island"), because it is an island, but why is it used in 福島市 (Fukushima city, literally "Good fortune island") and 広島市 (...
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How do you ask for "the bill" at a restaurant?
This is probably a bit of a silly question, but what do you say in Japanese when you're asking for the bill in a restaurant? Or is it unusual to say anything at all?
When I was in Japan I could never ...
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"Should" in Japanese
The word "should" in English has these uses when not used as a question:
To express the expectation of the speaker (Probabilistic reasoning).
The train should arrive in 10 minutes.
To express a ...
Flaw♦
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How to tell よく (often) apart from よく (good)?
Whenever I see 「よく」, I have to ask someone whether it means "often" or "good".
For example, here is a sentence from my book:
クラスへ行って、先生の講義をよく聞いて、ノートをよく取り、それをよく覚えれば、試験でいい点がもらえる。
I thought all ...
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Are there differences in nuance and usage of [内]{ない}[緒]{しょ}, [秘]{ひ}[密]{みつ}, [隠]{かく}し[事]{ごと} and [秘]{ひ}め[事]{ごと}?
They all carry the meaning of "secret" in English, but are there differences in nuance and usage of each of them:
[内]{ない}[緒]{しょ}
[秘]{ひ}[密]{みつ}
[隠]{かく}し[事]{ごと}
[秘]{ひ}め[事]{ごと}
Incidentally, ...
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What does かの日 mean?
In my Japanese Bible, I've seen several passages that use the phrase かの日. Here are a couple.
ある人たちの習慣に倣【なら】って集会を怠【なまけ】ったりせず、むしろ励【はげ】まし合いましょう。かの日が近づいているのをあなたがたは知っているのですから、ますます励【はげ】まし合おうではありませんか。 ...
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What does アタマ mean in reference to food/portion sizes?
I came across this at a Yoshinoya and I've never seen this before on a menu. I can't figure out what this is supposed to mean; all I can infer from the pricing is that maybe it's a size in between 並 ...
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人：difference between ひと and -うと
There are two readings of 人, as in these two examples: 恋人【こいびと】 and 素人【しろうと】
Why is 素人 (among others) the way it is and not しろひと or しろびと?
Furthermore, 狩人 is かりゅうど. Why is the final mora voiced here?
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What's the difference between 心, 念, and 意?
I can say that after much research on this, I'm more thoroughly confused than before I started. I'm talking mostly about when they are used as suffixes, but the concept applies when they stand alone, ...
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Polite Way to Ask "How old are you?" : 何歳 , いくつ ,年齢 , ご年
I think the sentences:
何歳ですか？
いくつですか？
年齢は？
お年は？
are all sentences that ask "How old are you?"
How are they different?
What form is most polite?
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Cardinal and intermediate directions
The four cardinal directions are the directions north, east, south, and west. The intermediate directions are northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest. In English it would be incorrect to say ...
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Describing my exact height
How do I describe my height in centimetres?
I think you can say "私は背が高いです" to say that you're tall, but how about your exact height? Would "私は背が１９０cmです" sound like broken Japanese?
I came across ...
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way to use さっぱり (sappari) and すっかり (sukkari)
Maybe it's just me, but I keep mixing up
As in
すっかり忘れてた
I've completely forgot
and
さっぱりわからない
I haven't the faintest idea / I really don't know
are there other expressions to use them?
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What determines whether a word gets a kanji compound or katakana?
I read electronics/computing articles, and I find an incredible amount of terms are written either in kanji (almost similar to Chinese) or katakana. There are times when it's confusing as to know why. ...
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The difference between 辞書 and 字引
My dictionary lists both 辞書{じしょ} and 字引{じびき} as simply, "Dictionary."
On tatoeba.org I can only find example sentences of 字引 where it is used in the phrase:
生き字引 = A walking dictionary
Example:
...
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どれ as an attribute
I found this sentence and I wonder whether I understand it correctly:
どれ腹の傷をおみせ、薬草をぬってあげよう。
The どれ there looks to me like “whichever” or “all”, so I’d get the sentence as “Let me look at all the ...
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What is "koto" used for? [duplicate]
I know "koto" means thing, but I've seen it used like this in my Self-Study Japanese book:
Nihon no koto ga yoku wakarimasu ka.
and
Chiimu no koto o kangaete imashita.
Does this mean Japan's thing ...
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The order after 男女比
Here is a short text I've encountered in a manga I'm reading:
The main character talks about his school where 男女比 (the sex ratio) is 9 to 1. At first I thought it means that it has 9 times more boys ...
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When is 酒【さけ】used to mean 日本酒【にほんしゅ】?
The fermented rice alcohol called "sake" in English is usually referred to as 日本酒【にほんしゅ】 in Japanese, while 酒【さけ】 merely means "alcohol" in general.
Yet, all dictionaries list both "alcohol" and "...
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Different usage of 普通に?
So, I was watching this show called Terrace House, and the following exchange between two participants caught my attention.
翔平:「 テラスハウスに入って、一番の…ここに来ての…財産じゃないけど、聖南と出会えたことだな。」
聖南:「いや、何か…普通にうれしいなと思って。...
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Can I help you?
In English, the word "help" can be used for any of these cases to ask somebody for help or to give a help to someone:
In a store, when a clerk (store worker) says:
Can I help you, sir?
With ...
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"Hey Bro!" how to call out friends
There is a variety of words such as ”友” ”相棒” ”仲間”, etc. to describe a person as a friend or partner.
Is there a casual way to call out your friend in Japanese, instead of having to call his/her name ...
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かかったためしない - how can this be translated?
I encountered the following sentence in a comic book which I could not make sense of.
The comic strip depicts a character using a simple bird trap and saying:
「長年やってるけどかかったためしないなあ」
The first part, ...
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から ending a sentence
I've seen this in a few texts now and since it's appeared with some frequency I thought to post the question here. I tried searching online but came up with no real conclusions.
ありませんから or plain form ...
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Questions about ありたい
心がいつも美しくありたいです
I want my heart to always be beautiful.
心がいつも美しくして欲しいです (Incorrect)
心がいつも美しくなりたいです
I want my heart to always be beautiful.(?)
My Japanese friend wrote the first ...
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Dismissing an expectation
What can be said when I need to dismiss an expectation?
Here are some examples of what I mean by "expectation":
I ask someone what time it is, then I remembered that I'm actually wearing a watch. ...
Flaw♦
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Japanese Dog Training Commands
My fiance and I will be moving to Japan sometime next year and are trying to prepare our dog for the experience by teaching her Japanese commands so she can be easily handled by kennels/vets/groomers/...
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What does 八 have to do with [八つ当たり]【やつあたり】?
For the longest time, I had never seen yatsuatari written down. I always figured it was written 奴当たり, which I figured would have been derived from 「あの奴に当たる」 or something.
Imagine my surprise when I ...
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If 'little girl' is 「少女」, then why is 'little boy' 「少年」?
Question
少女 means little girl because 少 means little/small and 女 means lady/female. It makes sense here. However it does not make sense when I read 少年 because 年 means year. Is there any reason why 年 ...
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という used right before comma: What does this mean, and how is it grammatically possible?
Finding questions about the meaning of という isn't too hard, but the answers tend to revolve around its usage before a word particle or something, such as in ということ. However there's a sentence in a ...
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What does the word 「っぴい」 mean?
Here is the sentence containing the word.
おことわりだね おまえみたいな 弱｛よわ｝っぴいと組むなんて！
やるんなら おれひとりでやらあ。
In my opinion, I think it would be transformation of the word 弾き or 'player' but I'm not uncertain if it is ...
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Repetitive words (e.g. どんどん, ぺらぺら, いらいら...)
This is one area that sometimes dings me on tests. While I can generally figure out what is meant from context, I only know a handful offhand.
The question here is twofold:
Is there a specific name ...
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The difference between するには and する為には
The one answer I have really found says there is no semantic difference. Is there a formality difference? Is する為には more formal than するには?
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Implications/usage of "訳あり"
I am reading a work of fiction by a Japanese novelist and I found an interesting phrase that I'm unfamiliar with, "訳あり"
In the story B launches a surprise raid on A's property. They talk a little bit ...
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What are the general patterns of child-directed speech in Japanese?
In English, parents usually talk to their kids differently from how they usually talk. The words they use when doing so usually ends in -y. For example, "kitten" becomes "kitty", "I" usually turns ...
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Why does 不甲斐{ふがい}ない mean "worthless" while 甲斐{かい} means "worth"?
JMdict:
不甲斐{ふがい}ない: disappointing; weak-minded; spiritless; cowardly; worthless; pusillanimous; feckless; faint-hearted; shiftless; tame; timid
甲斐{かい}: effect; result; worth; use; avail
...
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Understanding "よりを戻す" and "止めておこう"
I don't think us getting together tonight is such a good idea.
やっぱり今夜、よりを戻すのは止めておこう。
I would like to understand this sentence better, specifically the (idiomatic?) expression, "よりを戻す." I ...
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Meaning of 真逆, how it is different from 逆
[真]{ま}[逆]{ぎゃく} (not [真]{ま}[逆]{さか}, which is an interjection standardly used) is another 若者言葉, or an expression that is used mainly by young generation (with low education level) that makes me feel ...
user458
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Fun with synonyms - "evaluation/investigation/etc."
Explain the differences in the following vocabulary. They all essentially mean some form of investigation, inspection, etc. Please don't just write the definitions; I'm lost on how they differ, when ...
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What does 意外と mean?
I heard the expression [意]{い}[外]{がい}といい in a video. I know that 意外に expresses something you didn't expect:
意外においしいよ。
It's delicous! (and I didn't expect that)
Why did I hear 意外と instead of 意外に? ...
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影 vs 形 vs 形状. What's the difference between them?
I've been reading a text and all three of these come up 影 vs 形 vs 形状. I know they mean shape/figure, but is there a more nuanced difference between them? I can see the logic of where they are in the ...
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