As someone else from California, and someone who has had decorative lighting installed in my house, I promise you that it is indeed a thing.
Itâs all about context. I donât own a home and donât decorate for holidays, so Iâve never thought about âdecorative lightingâ even though Iâve obviously heard of it and know exactly what it means.
BUT, this doesnât mean that there isnât a simpler word to use in conversation in Japanese.
I asked some native speakers and they told me that even something like ăăłăŹăŒă·ă§ăłă©ă€ă would be more natural for something like Christmas lights. Obviously, that will never be taught on WK.
But ârapportâ and ârelationshipâ are not the same thing. : /
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This has been my unfortunate experience all through my 20 year+ journey of learning Japanese. I started off with those super painful 3A âMinna No Nihongoâ books. Decent number of totally wrong translations (I even wrote to the publishing company and they said they knew it was a problem and were working on it) and speaking patterns that I never heard when actually living in Japan⊠or so I thought.
It was later on though that I realised just how brutal a language Japanese is.
- Learning Japanese means learning at least 2, more often 3 languages. Youâve got Wa-go (old school Japanese) Kan-go (chnese) and gairai-go (foreign words). The first 2 are very often 2 sets of words that means EXACTLY the same thing but are used at different times depending on the formality of the situation. e.g. éžæăăvs éžă¶ or èłŒć „ vs èČ·ăăŸăăThere are a few situations like this in English where we use words derived from Latin and Greek and German all to mean the same thing⊠but itâs very rare compared to Japanese. The third category of âgairaigoâ grows day by day in Japan. Itâs easy for us english speakers (although very often you have to learn the WRONG way in which Japanese people use English) but imagine if you didnât speak english!
- The politeness categories. In french/spanish/german you have to learn 2 different conjugations of verbs depending on politeness level. In japanese there are⊠what⊠13?!? äœă ăăăŠăăäžăă/ăăăăŸăă/ăăăăŸăăă/ăăăăȘăă§ăăăă/ăăă ăăŸăă/ăăă ăăăă°ăăăăăăăăthe list is seemingly endless.
- Actually itâs more than 2 or 3 languages because once you get into keigo and all itâs variations thatâs a whole new language to itself. One that I found many young japanese donât actually know or use wrongly.
- 3 scripts! 1 of which (kanji) has thousands of characters with tens to thousands of readings.
- Add in dialects and accents. ok this is no different to any other language.
OK, this turned into a major rant, sorry! I guess what Iâm driving at is⊠even though your friend/wife/manga might lead you to believe that a certain word/phrase is not really used⊠doesnât mean it isnât. Japanese is totally different in newspapers/government documents/books/service industry vs what you hear on the street/on tv/in the izakaya.
**Edit over a year later: Iâve just discovered the site âkanji dammageâ they seem to have made an attempt at telling you which kanji and which vocab are commonly used/not used. I now cross reference every single thing I learn on WK with KD then leave amending notes in the âAdd notesâ function on WK. Itâs pain to be honest but useful because I too am rather fed up of being told, âno one says that, that word is only ever used in writingâ. KD goes into MUCH more detail about what words kanji/words are ânewspaper onlyâ and the nuances of how words are actually used in day to day speech. ***
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Recently I treated the vocab lessons as just the practice to guess kanji readings, for daily conversations I study the separate set of vocabs.
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I find vocab lessons are very useful for reading 
even if you learn words you donât hear spoken, they are definitely words you find in news articles and in other written forms.
Totally Real Quotesâą
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sounds masochistic, but so is learning Japanese
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I use atrocious lol
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I use atrocious quite a lot actually and also it sounds a ton better than other synonyms!
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I am not fortunate enough to live in Japan and have Japanese friends, so I cannot help much in the speaking side, but in the reading side WaniKani helps a lot. Although I am aware that it is wrong, for a long time WaniKani was my only source of vocabulary and I read many things where I put the vocabulary learned here to use.
But I think Japanese doesnât differ from other languages that much when it comes to common and uncommon vocabulary. In spoken language we use a very small set of words if you think about it⊠We use the same words time and time again, but you understand perfectly when someone is talking in formal context like politicians, economists, etc. who needs to speak in a more refined way. Even more so when you are reading, authors use things you donât even know where you learned but you understand anyway.
Novels in Japanese are mind-blowing and you end them thinking that WaniKani vocabulary set is very plausible indeed.
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Interesting! I think I see now where the confusion stems from. While Christmas lights may indeed be decorative, âdecorative lightingâ has nothing to do with Christmas or any other holiday-themed decoration. It sounds like you were asking your Japanese friends about an entirely different thing.
You should look it up, but here is a quick quote from LightsOnline.com
âDecorative lighting is the fourth layer of interior illumination and, simply put, it is like jewelry for the home: it helps your space sparkle and shine. Accessorize your house and bring out its best features by adding decorative lighting fixtures.â
So, as many others have noted, it is all about context.
I didnât bring up Christmas, only é»éŁŸ
They offered that on their own.
Do an image search for é»éŁŸ. Youâll see Christmas lights.
As someone who lives in Japan I can say that sometimes that is weirdly the case. I once asked for coffee and got side-eyed. (Something to the effect of âcoffeeăäžă€â) So I said ăłăŒăăŒ instead and was immediately understood. Definitely wont get you by in a more complicated situation butâŠyeah⊠shrugs
I donât see the point in teaching words that are archaic or obsolete. Yeah yeah yeah itâs teaching you to read not speak. I know. Why not use higher frequency words only?
To my understanding, itâs more a problem of finding words that use the kanji that youâve learned in your recent lessons and ones that teach you the readings you didnât learn with the kanji. The vocabulary in WaniKani is there to teach you the other readings and reinforce what youâve learned. Ultimately, WaniKani is all about the kanji, and not the vocabulary.
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If they are not high frequency, why teach them?
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Or at least highlight the fact that the words are obscure.
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Like I said, theyâre being used as a tool to expand on and reinforce the kanji youâve learned. The problem is they have to pick words using the kanji youâve learned in your current and previous levels. To me, that sounds like a good enough reason for using less common words.
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