体内 - Inside the body, or internal?

WaniKani Feedback
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Just a bit of feedback following my thread here

Just wondering if the primary meaning of this vocabulary item should be “Inside the body” as opposed to “internal”?

Perhaps I’m just being a bit pedantic! However, when I saw “internal” as the meaning, I didn’t think it was specific to the body.

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Usually, you would say “internal” though when referring to these things.
Like “internal bleeding”.

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Usually. But Internal is usually followed by context. If we say “internal bleeding”, we understand the meaning. Internal on its own means inside something.

Internal failure
Internal conflict
Internal review
Internal thoughts

to name a few more common examples of its use outside of the human body.

We can use internal for a lot of different things.

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The clue is in the 体 here.

In English the meaning of “internal” would be covered by 内, so for instance
機内 - inside the airplane
社内 - inside the company
車内 - inside the car

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That’s not really my main point. I’m not pushing hard on it being changed. Personally I just feel that internal is a little off.

Flip it around the other way. Imagine that we cannot see the Japanese kanji, we can only see the English word, and we have to write the Japanese word for it. If the answer is 体内, then in my eyes, that’s wrong. I don’t know all that many kanji yet, but my guess would be 内 on its own.

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If all I had to go by was “internal” I would probably write 〜内 or something, but if I was corrected to 体内, I wouldn’t argue about it too much. Like, one can add a synonym after all.

I can’t guarantee it, but your opinion might change the more kanji and words you learn.

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I’ve met two kinds of Japanese learners:

Those who want the English equivalent to be an explanation of the Japanese word (like “inside the body”)

And those who want the English equivalent to be the word that would be used by English speakers in the same context (like “internal”). Saying “bleeding inside the body” doesn’t sound natural after all.

I subscribe to the first group, and you seem to subscribe to it as well, but there are other opinions out there.

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