Its not like me to complain (it totally is), but I constantly get these two wrong so I took a quick break from reviews to come here and complain. I know that complaining about them usually helps, so here goes nothing.
Things is I actually went to jisho and copy pasted both of these words without their meanings. I already forgot which word is “win or lose” and which one is “match”
I first thought I must be overlooking something and that its simple, but both use a clam and both have a short of angular thing attached to the clam, so yeah sucks to be me…
I’m actually going to guess right now, I have no idea if what I write here is correct, but I think 勝負 means match and 勝敗 means win or lose? I’m not going to edit this post, but it kind of shows just how confusing these are if I’m wrong ;_;
This distinction was easy for me because I played Pokémon Sun in Japanese— every time another trainer challenges you to a fight, the game text introducing them says they want a 勝負
Probably doesn’t help that BOTH words can mean “victory or defeat” according to Jisho and they are both composed of kanji meaning “win” and “lose/failure/defeat”. This issue could be resolved by adding a synonym to 勝負 so you can just answer both of them with the same response.
But if you want a handle for remembering which one means “Match” here is some additional info that might be helpful:
“勝負 (Shoubu). A Japanese word meaning a game or match, consisting of the characters for win (勝) and loss (負). A shoubugo is a serious, competitive game as opposed to a teaching game (shidougo). A shobute is a move on which victory or defeat hinges.”
I haven’t run into 勝敗 yet but I remember 勝負 (しょうぶ) because of video games In the Neo Geo fighting game Samurai Shodown, every round of the match starts with the announcer yelling 勝負!