Same in Dutch:
landschildpad = tortoise
schildpad = turtle
pad = toad
and German:
Landschildkröte = tortoise
Schildkröte = turtle
Kröte = toad
You’d almost think these languages are related or something 
4 Likes
This is an absolutely genius list. Thanks for sharing! 
1 Like
If we’re talking about the Japanese word, yeah, possibly, especially since it’s the first definition in the dictionary. (I can’t find a source to confirm it though.) If we’re talking about the kanji though, no, it meant chariot or coach to begin with, but since the Japanese word probably came before kanji were adopted by Japan, I guess that’s not that important.
I was actually really surprised to see that in a recent stream (Reine x IRyS if you’re curious, @yamitenshi), two VTubers describing things to each other said 歯車 instead of ‘gear’ even though they both spoke English fluently and probably learnt English at least as early as they learnt Japanese, if not much earlier.
‘Toothed wheel’ is also the proper term for ‘gear’ in French: “roue dentée”
I’m not sure if I have any favourite words in Japanese… I have a favourite proverb, but it’s in Classical Japanese and quite long, so I shan’t bother everyone with possibly unusable vocabulary.
I guess I like how Japanese has a lot of etymologically translatable technical terms though?
酸素 = acid origin = oxy-gen = oxygen
単球 = single ball = (roughly) mono-cyte = monocyte
I’m pretty sure there are more, but either way, I appreciate their existence. Hahaha.
3 Likes
Sometimes brains do be weird like that, and you can only think of a word in one particular language
Though when that happens to me it’s usually that I can only think of the English word and not the Dutch word, and I am fluent in English. Can’t say I’ve ever had it happen with a language I’m not fluent in.
2 Likes
I was honestly confused for a bit: ‘Haguruma? You two sure you don’t mean hagoromo (羽衣)? I don’t see anything that looks like the robe of a divinity though. Wait, ha… guruma… くるま can also mean “wheel”, and は is “tooth”… wait, are they talking about the gears?’ checks dictionary ‘OH, they are!’ Very much my word of the day, that was.
4 Likes
ググる-to Google is kind of a fun verb.
1 Like
This one is quite famous.
And then I just learnt the ヤフる exists. I just searched due to my curiosity. I am not sure it actually exists, though.
1 Like
And in English… The place for the fire… The fire… place…
2 Likes
Ah yes the lovely fireplace up against the background of a wall with some paper on it. Some wallpaper, if you will. I enjoy it’s heat while enjoying a hot beverage made of chocolate. Perhaps a hot chocolate might be the word for it. All while siting in my chair which reclines. A recliner as the young folks say. I stare out the pane of glass that makes up my window, a windowpane if you will, at the yard in the back of my house. Not to be confused with the one in front of my house. Or as us cultured folk say, front yard and backyard. Only one of which uses a space for some wacky reason.
8 Likes
I would have responded sooner but I was having an issue with my… board that has keys on it.
8 Likes
I like 花火 (fireworks). Literally flower (花) of fire (火)
3 Likes
Learned recently the colloquial word タピる for… to drink bubble tea. A classic instance of anything and everything getting the verb treatment!
4 Likes
There’s also 火花 (spark)
1 Like
What I find “charming” is mostly how the words sound. Some of my favorites are:
- 輝く
- 囁く
- 普く
- くだらない
- 柔らかい
- 暗闇
- 支離滅裂
- 訊ねる
- 飾る
- 含羞む（はにかむ）
- まさか
- まじ
- 定か
For a few others it’s how it looks visually. For example I find 誓う really nice.
2 Likes
Just came across 日食 and its an instant 一目惚れ. Such a cool word and easy to imagine ^^
1 Like
Words that really tell you about Japanese culture like a necessary request is a demand (要求).
1 Like
Ah yes, like 姦しい, 嬲る, or 家内.
1 Like
Just scroll through kanji and vocab that uses the 女 and it will tell you more than you wanted to know about Japanese culture 
And then there’s words like 主人 which are very telling as well.
1 Like
I’m not sure that one is cultural so much as just semantic - the “necessary request” is more of a mnemonic than any sort of actual meaning, but if you look at monolingual dictionaries:
必要なこととして、また、当然の権利としてそれを求めること。
It’s more about “making a request for something necessary” which just sounds to me like the definition of a demand, basically. It could be cultural I guess, but it doesn’t feel that way to me.
I’d be wary of treating individual kanji as words like this in general, honestly.
1 Like
I have no idea if it’s really cultural. All I can say is that we use exactly the same word in Chinese (so if it’s cultural, it’s a matter of shared culture), and here’s the thing: in modern Chinese, 要 can mean both ‘to want’ and ‘to ask for’. When I think about 要求 in a Chinese context, I parse it as ‘to ask for and beg’ (because 求 is closer to ‘beg’ in Chinese), and if I were to translate it as a single word, it would be ‘request’.
Any sort of cultural revelation, in my opinion, would lie in how 要求 is interpreted, along with its connotations, and not so much how it can be translated, particularly since multiple translations are often possible for a single word.
1 Like