Just made my first Japanese word 
I learned 開発, developing, so from that I guessed that I could actually tell what I am in Japanese, 私は開発者です😁
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That there are a lot of Chinese Hanzi and Japanese words that are similar! I was learning Chinese and when I went to Japan, there were a lot of words that looked familiar to me. Now that I am using Pandanese for Chinese and Wanikani for Japanese, it reminded me of how similar some characters are!!
I’m constantly surprised by how ordinary some words can be. Like doubutsu is “moving thing” ? and Hiroshima just meaning wide island, or Tsunami sounds like (Tsu) strong (Mi) Wave, stuff like that. It’s less mind blowing and more like disappointment. I heard Chinese can also be like this, where owl is spelled 'cat face bird".
But the biggest realization is that Japanese only has 130 or so unique sounds and yet with 3000+ written characters recommended to function professionally … yet children under the age of seven who can’t read seem to be able to speak well and tell elaborate stories, navigating synonyms effortlessly. Makes you wonder.
But funny enough, I just had the pleasure of watching two older women misunderstand each other in a spectacular way. The older woman used “hippa” to describe people leaving, but the daughter understood it as someone pulling people away. Both native speakers. Good grief.
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Not quite, the kanji are 津波
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So many Ateji crimes 
You’re not wrong of course but it betrays the logical inference of the sound, as the spelling was added later. “Harbor wave” is redundant and isn’t the Chinese kanji either, it’s totally random. I wish I could have been there to slap the sense into the troll that made Japanese so needlessly confusing.
The worst example I’ve encountered is Rice Substitute Island. Pretty sure that wasn’t what they had in mind, either.
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I’m not sure 津波 would be classified as ateji (つ and なみ are both kunyomi and both are words that mean what the kanji mean as used in the overall word, while the broadest definition of ateji usually involves some deviation from those), and it certainly doesn’t seem random to me. It’s a wave that much more directly impacts the coast (harbors) more than things in the open sea.
If there’s some attestation to つなみ that wasn’t a combination of the word つ and なみ I’m unaware of, please let me know.
I’m not sure I would use the term “crimes” to describe ateji, but it’s certainly not like 寿司 or along those lines.
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If you’re looking for ateji crimes, wikipedia thinks there are some old texts that write つなみ as 海立 or 震汐 (still read つなみ) The earliest cite it lists (from the 1600s) is the more sensible 津浪, though, which is the same as the modern word except it’s picked one of the other possible kanji you can write the word なみ with.
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That’s true, it’s not as random as I made it out to be. I should reserve my anger for Counter for Machines Wind
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Japanese doesn’t have English subtitles when people talk to you. Its fucking wack. Maybe in the next patch update.
EDIT: accidentally replied to someone.
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Wanikani teaches 空 as ‘sky’ (そら) so when i first saw 空手 (からて) I didn’t immediately put it together
But then I remembered another reading of 空 is から (thanks Osomatsu-san loving friend telling me Karamatsu trivia) which means empty
So karate’s kanji probably refers to the fact its a kind of “empty-handed” combat (as opposed to using a sword)
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That is how the term is explained sometimes, but the actual origin is a bit different.
Karate originates in Okinawan martial arts called 手. At one point Chinese martial arts were combined with those to form 唐手 (essentially meaning Chinese martial arts), which can be read からて (but was originally read とうでぃ in the Ryukyuan language at the time, from what I can find). Later (much later, Wikipedia says 1935) the writing was changed to 空手, though I’m not entirely sure why.
So while the “empty hand” thing makes sense, it was actually named after its Chinese origins.
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Neat!
Sorry for spreading false etymology~ 
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Hah, don’t worry, this particular bit of false etymology I’ve even heard spread from karate teachers 
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I don’t know how many people here remember the infamous John Romero game ‘Daikatana’
but I was watching a video that mentioned it in another tab
and it suddenly struck me that daikatana = dai 大 Katana 刀 (Big Sword www)
And surely enough on the box:
I first heard of this game several years ago before learning any Japanese so I just absorbed it wholesale without realising it actually had a meaning
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Then you realize that 大刀 is actually pronounced たち
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that makes it even better!
Also I forgot to mention
The game ‘Big Sword’
Is a First-Person Shooter like Doom or Quake
y’know… not much sword based gameplay
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Unique readings for titles aren’t unheard of, but yeah, だいかたな isn’t an established reading for it.
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I was sitting in traffic once, idly staring at a sign for “Rickshaw Restaurant”, and suddenly my brain went “oh! I bet the shaw in rickshaw is しゃ → 車！” I looked it up later, and sure enough, rickshaw comes from 人力車 （じんりきしゃ）
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Level 23 and I just learned 崎.
Ichigo’s family name 黒崎 uses the kanji for black and cape. His given name can be read as strawberry (and he’s strawberry blond) and his family name is a pun…
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