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A very tricky question, but it is a good one mainly because it made me think.
「響{ひび}く」 can indeed mean "to come home" and "to remain with someone". Only five minutes ago, however, I was going to say the completely opposite thing. Here is why:
In this case, "to come home" should mean "to become very clear in an unpleasant way" and not "to come back to one'...
8
四五町{しごちょう} ＝ 4 to 5 町{ちょう}
According to デジタル大辞泉,
1町 ＝ approx. 109 meters
Thus, 四五町 would be around 400-500 meters. That is how far the place in question is located from the main street （駅路）.
町 is a unit of distance used often to describe "walking distances".
I learned that 町 when read as ちょう was a unit of measurement comparable to a mile.
Not sure ...
5
Although both are on-yomi compounds, I feel 祖先 sounds more technical and academic. 先祖 tends to be used in daily conversations and religious contexts (e.g. 墓参り), whereas 祖先 tends to be preferred in biological, archaeological and programming contexts. This I think is why we commonly say ご先祖様 with respect but not ご祖先様. That said, this distinction is not very ...
5
Scientifically speaking, 湯気 does not mean vapor but steam because 湯気 is a visible thing whereas vapor is invisible gaseous thing. I think 蒸気 corresponds to vapor in English, but we don't usually distinguish between them same as in English
so there is not much difference between 湯気 and 蒸気.
Setting aside above, 湯気 is more common phrase in spoken language than ...
4
「ちらっ」 with a small っ is a very common onomatopoeic word describing a momentary glance. The pitch accent is on the 「ら」.
When combined with a verb, we add a 「と」 and say 「ちらっと見{み}る」 ("to have a momentary look").
「ちらっ」, all by itself, does not mean a "peek-a-boo", but it can describe the looking-briefly part of it.
We have the interesting-sounding word 「...
4
This may be a somewhat controversial, but I'm not really a fan of Sara Backer's take on the spelling. For the lay man, Ng will most likely receive the normal 'N' pronunciation with a hard 'g' sound following it (like in 'golf'). However, knowing what I do about the language, using a soft 'g' actually does get the sound phonetically written into English ...
4
These lines are indeed hard to interpret, but after reading the whole lyrics, my conclusion is that the interpretation in Chiebukuro is not correct, and your interpretation is not spot-on, either.
個人的な嵐は誰かのバイオリズム (lit. "Personal storms are someone's biorhythm") seems to imply you cannot perfectly control your situation and there are always stormy (or ...
4
Simply, this アニメ is the name of an old cat. うちの clearly indicates this アニメ belongs to the speaker's home or family. The の in 老猫のアニメ is an apposition marker (i.e., アニメ is an 老猫). See: What's the difference between 日本人の学生 and 日本の学生 ?
3
The difference in meaning is not very subtle. In real life, the two expressions would rarely be interchangeable, either.
「新年{しんねん}の抱負{ほうふ}」 is more common because it sounds lighter and it is easier to use than 「年頭{ねんとう}の誓{ちか}い」.
「抱負」 means "ambition", "aspiration", "plan", "hope", etc. In short, it just refers to what you plan to do.
「年頭の誓い」 sounds ...
3
You're bringing up a few issues. Let's look at them separately and you'll find it's not as hard as it may seem to you now (though not easy either)
Different kanji spellings
Many common English words have got muliple meanings. Dictionaries usually list them as one entry. Reasons why this is not particularly troubling for English speakers include
Meanings ...
3
MIN (or MND) next to INT usually refers to MIND (commonly translated as 精神, 精神力), which is typically related to resistance to magic.
3
As you know, this story is about a family who possesses a one-in-a-ten-million (and almost unhuman) kind of 'photographic' memory. Its members are capable of thoroughly memorizing massive and endless amounts of literature.
To describe their own special ability or action, they needed a word to use among themselves or use a common existing word for their ...
3
This describes a specific method of polishing rice.
From California's New Gold Rush - The New York Times
In one method, called kapika, polished rice is fine-sanded to produce a more lustrous finish
2
Yes. There is the difference what environment to be mentioned. However, I think the difference is already almost listed up in the definition you gave.
野外{やがい} seems corresponding really well between English and Japanese.
But, "suburbs" is bit odd to me. If you are in 「野外{やがい}」, there should be few buildings around you. So, the word is not really relevant ...
2
In this instance, it's a shortening of something like 盗み聞きとは卑怯な, 盗み聞きとは倫理に悖る, 盗み聞きとは油断も隙もない. What exactly is shortened must be guessed from the context.
It can be used in a very versatile way, e.g. 人助けとは...(殊勝だ), 泣くとは...(情けない), 火事とは...(驚いた).
2
EDIT: See l'électeur's answer. With the full context and the title of the story, it's clear that this しまう is a simple transitive verb that means "to put/keep/store (in a drawer, closet, box, etc)". This meaning of しまう is very common and not dialectal at all, but "brain" is not a container normally used with this verb, hence the brackets.
What the repeated ...
1
Two years later, looking back at my own question and the comment by @kuchitsu, I may have understood why I thought 正規品 means different from the given example.
comment: some info and examples: ejje.weblio.jp/content/%E6%AD%A3%E8%A6%8F%E5%93%81 – kuchitsu Jan 29 '18 at 18:24
As per referenced comment, 正規品 on Weblio hinted that the word does not simply mean ...
1
Something I'd like to add:
百姓is more a historical term, like "peasant" or "serf".
I think it would only be appropriate to use the term when talking about people in the past.
Japanese history textbooks, for example, use the word frequently, much the same way you'd see an English textbook use the word "peasant" or "serf", because in that context, it's not an ...
1
The Japanese language indeed has a lot of homophones, and it has a historical reason. Japanese borrowed many words from Chinese, and Chinese words that had different pronunciations merged into one pronunciation during the borrowing process. See: Specific examples of tonal Chinese words rendered into Japanese
This may look unfortunate, but English also has a ...
1
I understand your pain, but that is what Japanese is. You are asking how to learn everything, for that there are few points here:
you do not need to learn all the words -- it's impossible, just start with most common ones (even native speakers don't know and don't use all words);
meaning usually gets from the context or common usage patterns, which you will ...
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