こんばんは
Hope this is the right category, first time on the forum.
Just wondering whether 国宝 means national treasure as in Stephen Fry, or as in valuable artifacts of a country. As a British English speaker, I’m much more familiar with a national treasure being a person than an object, but it seems like that might be more 人間国宝 from what I can tell Googling it.
Feel like that’s something worth clarifying in the vocab desription if it doesn’t normally mean a person.
レオ
Judging by the JP-JP dict defintion it’s only stuff not people at least in the narrow sense of the definition.
Maybe it can be used to refer to people though… Especially since wanikani also has this whole nic cage thing as alternate meaning. I’ll investigate some more.
EDIT: after some cursory search I’m pretty sure it’s just stuff and your 人間国宝 is for people.
Usually when you say 人間国宝 in Japanese you are referring to an actual system promoted by the Japanese Ministry of Culture (MEXT) which nominates people who hold immaterial cultural properties considered to be national treasures. It is usually given to people who have mastered traditional performing arts or crafts. It seems the English Wiki has a page for it, too.
That being said, I’m pretty sure given proper context, you can say stuff like あの人は本当に生きる国宝みたい
However, no Japanese will ever answer you a person’s name if you ask them to quote examples of Japanese 国宝, because that’s not the standard meaning for that word.
This is one of those nouns for which Wikipedia is a pretty good resource for nailing down the precise meaning:
Or for the English version of the page:
Edit: Heh, I thought I’d been Leebo’d for a second there, but while we had the same idea, we posted different links. 
Kindof.
If you look at the japanese version it specifically says that it is focusing on the second definition in the linked dictionaries.
So what @SyncroPC said still applies with possibly using it to refer to people but used by itself the association is more to what you linked to.
I think I remember playing a game where they once refered to the princess of an empire as 国宝
I tried finding a pic online of that dialog scene, but I think I won’t be able to.
Thanks all, that’s really helpful! Really appreciate the time taken to find all that info.
So it would seem it is indeed just for physical objects, any even 人間国宝 isn’t exactly “national treasure” in the sense we’d use it.
I think the Crabigator’s description could do with clarifying this point… As much as I appreciate the Nic Cage reference, if you didn’t know about the film “National Treasure”, you might assume it means national treasure as in, person.
Do mods check these forum posts, or would it be worthwhile to send an email? Or not worth bothering with? Obviously this is one of those vocab words that’s pretty niche, so I doubt if it’s going to cause anyone a real problem…
My boss was translating something to English and asked me to proofread it. The original text had “人間国宝である(person’s name)”, and she translated it as “living national treasure,” so I think 人間国宝 is okay for referring to people like Stephen Fry
Interesting! Is your boss native?
You can tag mods to check something with @Mods which I just did with this post. But shooting an e-mail is also a valid method.
EDIT: though the example sentences all don’t refer to people which is also a pretty strong sign.
Yep! Born and raised in Japan
I feel like you feel that I’m attempting to provide a counter-example. I’m not.
I guess unless the context of the source was as per SyncroPC’s definition, that’s pretty conclusive that the 人間 variety of treasure can at least in context refer to Stephen Fry etc. Does seem in general that wouldn’t be the most common use though. Thanks.
I might ask a Japanese friend about this tomorrow, although seems a trivial thing to get hung up on lol.
Awesome to know there’s a community I can go to ask such an obscure question, and have a bunch of dedicated 日本語 otaku looking into it. ありがとうございます
ouch
but yes, I think you summed it up very well
申し訳ございません <(_ _)>
honestly, i thought it was just a joke since the mnemonic alternative meaning is Nicolas Cage. feel better that it exists as a term outside that context
Memetic. 
Yep! Tagging us is the best way to get our attention (though we do sometimes read the forum).
It looks like the hive mind has come up with a more than acceptable answer here, but if there’s anything we can help clarify in the future, please let us know!
i think it’s pretty funny that one of the listed synonyms for this vocab in WK is Nic Cage
Ah, it’s fun when something unrelated that I’m doing brings together multiple different threads in this forum. Last night while reading Mizuki Shigeru’s Showa (which came up in the ABBC thread), I was reminded of the Living National Treasure (i.e. this thread), kabuki actor 八代目 坂東 三津五郎, who, in 1975, went to a restaurant in Kyoto and ordered four servings of 河豚肝 (which brings in the 河豚 thead), claiming to be immune to the toxins.
He was not immune.