Yes, “Alter” has many different meanings and will always become clear by context, e.g.
das Alter (age of a person)
ein Alter (an old man)
Alter (dude)
Originally I didn’t aim to discuss all possible options and the meaning of “Alter Bridge” (there might be none or a simple translation error)…
my only point was that “Alter” can never mean “old” which would be “alt” in German 
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do u finish all your messages with ?
lol
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I try to
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I just found out the economic japanese K-cars are really 軽カー, itself a hybrid 和製英語 from 軽自動車 , or “passenger [only] automobiles”
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The words senpai and kouhai actually share a kanji. The ぱい of senpai is just a rendaku’d はい. I knew about rendaku and the two words for awhile, but never had it click until I learned 輩
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Oh my god. I’d been wondering this for a while, but never bothered to look up the origin of that term. I actually figured it was some Japanese word with a reading of けい I hadn’t encountered before.
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yeah dude, me too!
It depends on how far you are, but I’ll try to list a few early ones that aren’t too spoilery.
Tokoyami Fumikage the Bird Boy, has the kanji for “Darkness” 闇ーやみ, specifically 常闇 which is everlasting darkness, in his family name and "Shadow” 影ーかげ in his given name. He’s the one with the quirk, Dark Shadow.
Aizawa Shouta has 相-あい in his name, which contains the Eye Kanji and is pronounced Ai, which might be coincidental- What isn’t coincidental is the 消ーしょう in his given name, which means erase, and he can erase quirks.
Sero Hanta - No kanji puns here, but his name contains セロハン, which is the Japanese word for cellophane, as in cellophane tape. And he can make tape. Good stuff.
Todoroki Shouto - Shouto, Half-Hot and Half-Cold, is 焦ーしょう 凍ーとう- Burn and Freeze.
Things like that, they’re all over the place and almost every character has at least one. My absolute favorite name joke is Hitoshi Shinsou, but I don’t know where you’re at in the story so I’ll save that one.
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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 almost two years of study, I’m still a long way from being able to hold a proper conversation in Japanese. This shit is hard…
It’s a little demotivating, but I’m not giving up. Just gotta keep remembering the achievements. Keep things in perspective.
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The first time I encountered un-translatable aspects of Japanese was with ね and よ. Being able to understand the nuance and feeling that something gives without translating it is a great feeling.
When it comes to thinking in Japanese, it’s definitely important being able to hear/read a sentence and just understand it without taking the time to translate it. Think of the most complex sentence that you can understand (both grammatically and in terms of vocab) and say it or read it to yourself. If you can’t understand the sentence without translating it, then you need to do more practice.
You’re damn right! I’ve been studying for around 2 years as well, and I first spoke Japanese to a Japanese person literally the other day. Even then, I couldn’t hold my Japanese past a single sentence and I had to switch to English. Again though, practice is key.
This exactly. I wish I could staple this to the minds of all the people learning kana for the first time, bound to give up after they can just about write their name. Find the passion you have for learning Japanese. If you can’t find it, maybe you shouldn’t learn Japanese. But if you can find it, hold onto that and think about it constantly.
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I just dropped my phone on the table and stared slack-jawed in awe at the opposite wall for a solid minute at that realization.
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I can thank Scott Pilgrim for learning that one.
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In my job I send loads of emails in Japanese every day, and sometimes it is a pain to type out unusual names or names with unusual Kanji combinations. For instance, I often email this person called 咲緒莉 (Saori), but every time I write さおり the wrong Kanji show up and I have to spell it out Kanji by Kanji.
However, this week I finally figured that you can register words in the Microsoft IME. All you have to do is type out the word, highlight it, right click the ‘あ’ on IME (down right corner of Windows), choose 単語の登録, insert the correct reading, choose the category (noun, name etc.) and done!
Maybe this is common knowledge, but it blew my mind after 3 years of computer typing in Japanese ^^
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Thanks for sharing! Although this seems like a lot of work 
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So I’m not sure if this one has been mentioned, and it’s such a small thing, but…
I’ve known for years the word for brown is ちゃいろ. Just a few days ago, I finally saw it in kanji form: 茶色. Tea color. Brown is literally tea colored.
Yeah, that one threw me for a loop.
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Though it is a bit confusing, because you’d think that 茶色 would be みどり…
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Apparently the nature of the universe can be apprehended both in Japanese and English. And expressed in both. Anyone looked at the translations, even fragments, of Einstein’s seminal papers in their Japanese renderings? Imagine you were reading that for the first time. One of the puzzles of “evolution” is that, somehow, the nature of the universe is “written” in a language that is intelligible to some and, with study, can be made comprehensible to all the readers of these logs? How is that intersection of physics and the concepts in his and our minds to be explained? How can that possibly be accounted for? When it is set out this way, how can the idea of “random mutations” be put forward as an idea seriously proposed for belief? The religious explanation, contrary to many, does not go wrong in any easy or obvious way. Just being silly, of course.
Wooow, that’s cool!!! 
I’ve not had one of these in Japanese yet (other than sayounara), but I DID take an embarrassing number of semesters in French before I realized that Mardi Gras meant Fat Tuesday literally, so…
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The hell are you talking about?
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