A little while back I was learning a bunch of vocab, when I came across the word 時代「じだい」meaning “period”, “era”, or “age”, which sounded awfully familiar to me. Suddenly, it struck me. The period of Japanese history from the 15th to the 17th century is known as The Warring States Period , or in Japan…

I finally understand what people mean when they say that you need to start thinking in Japanese, not just trying to translate from English. I’m now learning grammar patterns which just don’t translate into English. It does my head in a little bit. Also, the other big realisation is that even after …

It’s along the lines of “where’d that thing go this time”, but I like your translation just fine :joy: [image] Saida: Also those XXX’s gave me some weird ideas as well, one X would have sufficed :joy: I… see what you mean. Oh well, too late to go back now!

I just encountered 左様なら - - in kanji for the first time, and it means something like “when it is the state of separating” :exploding_head: omg it all makes sense :dizzy_face:

Where did you see it has something to do with separating when broken into the parts? I believe it’s just 左様 “like this”, “the way things are” etc… So 左様なら is like “if it has to be like this”. The 左 is ateji, btw, if that’s what you were thinking of. It was originally 然様 (still read as さよう).

OMG hahaha I was thinking of 差 instead of 左 when I wrote this :woman_facepalming: Well, (almost) the same lower part does not yield the same meaning… sorry for the confusion!

鶏 is pronounced にわとり, which sounds like 庭 + 鳥 A chicken is just a garden bird. Who knew?

If you’re looking for more of those mind blows, I can recommend this thread: [image] Special kanji words derived from other words Kanji Continuing from here , in this topic we can discuss kanji that become their own words, that are clearly derived from simpler kanji/words.…

Woah! I am totally behind :joy: Didn’t know this thread existed until now. Thanks for the heads up!

Because of homonymes, learning Japanese without learning kanji is very hard as many complex words in japanese are contracted using on’yomi into compound words. I find talking with my tutor that when I don’t recognize some word that I should know, when I see the kanji it immediately comes back to me…

Yup! This is exactly why I don’t understand the “I’m learning/fairly decent in Japanese but I don’t bother with kanji” crowd. I know kanji look intimidating but you’re seriously making things much harder on yourself by skipping them.

I’m actually surprised to hear this as well. I’ve heard that phrase loads where I live (deep inaka Tohoku), and since it’s absolutely a phrase in English I never questioned that it wouldn’t be normal in other places. Interesting that there’s any sort of similarity at all between Kansai-ben and the l…

Biggest Realizations / Mind Blows You've Experienced Learning Japanese: Emoji means what?!?!

Japanese Language

NicoleIsEnough November 12, 2020, 8:16pm 767

If you’re looking for more of those mind blows, I can recommend this thread:

You have been warned

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Biggest Realizations / Mind Blows You've Experienced Learning Japanese: Emoji means what?!?!

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