one big realization that I frequently remember is when いってきます went from being just sounds to something I actually understood (not just from hearing it all the time). As an absolute beginner it’s kind of hard to look at that and see any of the words you’re learning (imo). Then one day somewhere along the Japanese I grammar path you’re like … oh.
6 Likes
Im playing a Japanese game where an Osakan protagonist uses Kansai dialect, and it took me a while to figure out that his use of や was a replacement for だ, for example, なんや instead of なんだ. I didn’t know that was a Kansai quirk.
3 Likes
This video on yes/no kinda blew my mind:
Sambonjuku YES/NO in Japanese
Specifically that うん・ううん・んー are all pronounced similarly but are written differently in order to tell them apart.
When I realised that the word emoji comes from the Japanese and not from the word “emotion” or whatever. Like, it’s just the romaji of 絵文字… that was such a mindblowing realisation.
11 Likes
I used to think emoji was e-moji similar to e-mail. Then I realized it was the “e” as in picture and not “electronic.” 
5 Likes
I think my biggest realization that completely blew my mind was the very first Japanese words I ever learned - self-taught.
I was watching Cowboy Bebop at the time (an excellent anime), and toward the end of the series I had noticed a pattern, the use of words like “chotto”, chottoto", “matte”, “machinasai”, “chotto matte”. From that, I simply drew the conclusion that “chotto” was “a little” and “matte” was “wait”, so “chotto matte” became “wait a second (little)”.
Exited, I googled it with guessed romanji spellings and it turned on I was spot on! I had successfully translated words in a language I knew nothing about and I was absolutely stoked!
After that, I was hooked on this new game I had invented - guessing the meaning of Japanese words based on the context of use in anime and elsewhere.
(In the end, I took up hiragana/katakana, as well as Japanese numbers, but not kanji. And for several years I just kept learning tons of vocabulary on my own. It turns out, you absolutely can self-teach yourself vocab - if you don’t mind wasting time doing so! 
There are certainly a faster path to language learning! But all that contextual learning has given me a rather good base for learning kanji - it turns out, now that I use WK. So all if fine that ends fine.).
But that first sense of enjoyment at having understood something in Japanese, is what still drives my learning of the language. It’s a lot of fun! ^>^
9 Likes
Haha, this is amazing - I’ve never heard this English word! Merriam-Webster gives a nice description of its origin:
The word skosh comes from the Japanese word sukoshi, which is pronounced “skoh shee” and means “a tiny bit” or “a small amount.” The Japanese word was shortened by U.S. servicemen stationed in Japan after World War II. Later, in the Korean War, a small soldier was often nicknamed “Skosh.” In civilian-speak, “skosh” can be used as a noun (as in our example sentence) or adverbially (as in “I’m a skosh tired”).
3 Likes
I’ve still yet to hear someone actually use this in English.
2 Likes
I use it all the time and had the same Aha moment when I learned the word in Japanese… sometimes I say “smidge” instead… anyone know the origin of that one?
3 Likes
You know that you’ve herewith agreed to submit a voice recording? 
2 Likes
If none of the people you know use it, they probably won’t spontaneously start.
3 Likes
Probably not so interesting for most of you guys, but I don’t really watch anime and have learned most of my Japanese studying abroad in Japan for a year, talking to friends I made there in classes and clubs. As a result, I never had the opportunity to learn much rude Japanese, because I never got to hear it and it’s not taught in Japanese classes.
So this week I realized that 貴様 (きさま) is actually very rude. I didn’t study the wanikani card in detail, because it just made sense to me. “Valuable, honorable person” and it means “you”? Got it!
I guess I’m just lucky that I never got around to using it on a Japanese conversation partner until I learned the real meaning this week 
.
7 Likes
Unless they see it on a certain Japanese language forum and want to start using it! 
1 Like
These are not exactly mindblowing, but still interesting realizations.
When I was leaning the word 東方 I was like… I’ve heard とうほう before, could it be? And yeah, the Touhou games actually use these Kanji.
Another cool connection I made… I was playing Utawarerumono where one character is called Haku (short from Hakuoro). Awfully familiar to the Onyomi of 白.
Turns out Hakuoro has the Kanji 白皇 where the second is read extremely irregularly, but the “white” part actually IS the same.
Not video game related, with Kanji I can actually remember 午前 and 午後… I confused them all the time trying to remember them in Kana.
5 Likes
No. Way. 
Especially because 文字 is one of my nemesises, I tried ぶんじ 、もんじ and other stuff 
絵文字。。。Wow.
3 Likes
This article about transitive and intransitive pairs was such a game changing mind blow that I went and reset back to the beginning so I could review everything from the beginning with this in mind.
If you don’t want to read the article the biggest takeaways are：
Stop thinking of them in terms of the English definitions transitive and intransitive and think of them in Japanese terms 自動詞 and 他動詞 it’ll make more sense.
All verbs ending in す su are transitive verbs. Whether they have an intransitive “pair” or not. (する - to do - you are an “other” agent doing and acting on those verbs 他動詞)
Verbs ending in aru are intransitive (ある - to exist. These verbs are just existing on their own by “themselves” 自動詞)
There’s other good stuff in there but once I read that I also couldn’t believe I followed that su rude crap either.
2 Likes
There are a bunch that aren’t though, like 引っ越す, 暮らす, and a lot of things that take the auxiliary 出す, like 飛び出す, 降り出す, etc.
And する can also be intransitive, alone or as an attachment to a noun.
3 Likes
Isn’t 貼る transitive? But if it helps you to just remember exception when you encounter them, go for it!
I imagine that rule is about things where the “a” sound isn’t part of the beginning of the verb, like 始まる or 閉まる, and I don’t know of any exceptions to that off the top of my head, but I haven’t looked.
1 Like
I think it still comes down to having a pair. I don’t think the rules apply if the verb isn’t part of a pair.