Most recent Japanese word you've learned?

Japanese Language
#1

What’s the most recent vocabulary word or phrase you’ve learned, and where did you learn it? Of course vocabulary you just guru’d on WK is fine, but you can also share useful words you picked up from a book, TV show, manga, song, etc!

My hope is that we can look at each others posts and learn something new~ Plus, this thread can also be a record you can look back on in the future to see how far you’ve come :smile: So, let’s get sharing!

えい - ray (e.g. stingray)

Picked it up from watching the Japanese dub of Moana :+1:

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(No Translation Version) Most recent Japanese word that you've learned
#2

えい - ray (e.g. stingray)

Learned five seconds ago by looking at this thread.

Serious one: I learned 右翼（うよく）right wing (as in the Japanese right wing groups that blast nationalistic slogans from black vans or outside Yasukuni Jinja). Learned it from Karl Taro Greenfeld’s very entertaining (but full of bullshit) book Speed Tribes.

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#3

Shouldn’t you have learned 右翼 10 levels ago? >_>

I can’t remember what the last lesson I did on WK was.

I was just watching GoT with Japanese subtitles and learned a few words here and there. At least, I saw them and probably won’t remember them.

Like 穢れなき軍団 (the Unsullied Army). Kind of useless and probably archaic.

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#4

Depends on your definition of learned. I’ve studied it here and I’d guess never got wrong. However, it’s one of those words I wouldn’t be able to recall or use outside WK. Also, WK defines it simply as right wing, but in that book it’s used to refer to the right wing groups (although the book is in English).

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#5

昼夜逆転 - ちゅうやぎゃくてん
One’s days and nights being reversed. Learned from a SHISHAMO song of the same name.

I was excited when I picked up on the first half of this phrase from the song:

久々の休み 私は布団の中
昨日の疲れ言いわけにして 宝の持ち腐れ

…and just now, learning 宝の持ち腐れ - たからのもちぐされ which jisho.org defines as
"pearls thrown before swine; unused possession; useless possession; waste of talent"

Dang. Good thread. I’m gonna work on better understanding this whole song today! :slight_smile:

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#6

I just finished doing a couple Memrise courses, so I learned quite a few words. The final one, though, was とっさに (at once).

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#7

I just learned that 二酸化炭素（にさんかたんそ）means cabon dioxide.

They were talking about it in the No 6 novel, along with 化石燃料（かせきねんりょう）literally fossile fuel, so it made sense in context :slight_smile:

It was also cool because it was my first example of how chemical compounds are expressed in Japanese.

Edit: fixed misspelling of 化石💦

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#8

Keeps coming up in No. 6:

呟く (つぶやく) - to mumble or mutter. (Apparently it can also mean “to tweet”!)

That kanji (and quite a few others used in the book, as a matter of fact) not currently taught by WK.

Another good one from the book is 液晶画面 (えきしょうがめん) - LCD.

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#9

The new kanji just keep coming at an insane rate! In book 2 I’ve started seeing more fancypants versions of a few of the WK ones!

I’m adding each unfamiliar kanji to anki, today I’ve read 10 pages and have already run into seven kanji I’ve never seen before! :open_mouth:

呟く does appear a lot and variations of 褐 seem to be the author’s favorite color :slight_smile:

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#10

Totally – I’m really finding that the “first page syndrome” or whatever that they always talk about is really true – you start to internalize the way that an author writes and the devices they use over and over and soon the pages just fly by.

Whenever I look up a word I just save it to a folder in the Midori dictionary app called “No. 6” – I’m only at the end of chapter 1 and I have almost 500 words in there… :thinking::grimacing::grinning:

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#11

つぶやく is super common in fiction. Although, not one you’re going to use too much in real life, I’d guess. I’ve seen it written in kana before, which may be why WK doesn’t have it?

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#12

The most recent new word I encountered “in the wild” was 肌着 (underwear) in 大逆転裁判 2. Not a word I normally use when communicating in Japanese, but still important to learn, lol.

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#13

Daigaku! For university :slight_smile:

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#14

Thanks to a YouTube video of an “Attack on Titan” soundtrack and a specific comment I have just learned the word “traitor”: 裏切り者（うらぎりもの）(and it’s quite satisfying to know that when it’ll come up in WaniKani later I’ll already know it)

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#15

Also showing up frequently in No. 6

ため息 - ためいき - Sigh

Great word!

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#16

Thanks for your contribution, Señor Snarkbucket :joy:

Oooh how is it? I got the collection of the first 3 games that has both Japanese and English a while ago and just started playing through them in Japanese. Defs have my eyes on 大逆転裁判 1 and 2 though because Japan exclusives :astonished:

And now to contribute to the thread:

一本気（いっぽんぎ）- one track mind

Learned from WK level 4. It’ll still be a while before I get to kanji I don’t know but I’ve been surprised by the amount of new vocab I’ve picked up so far~

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#17

Jealousy;Envy 嫉妬 しっと
Source: Randomly picked up by reading a light novel.

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#18

How do you know my real name?

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#19

尻 (しり) - Butt
Picked it up from an anime.

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#20

I just learned:

北朝鮮
きたちょうせん

which means North Korea.

Of course, you can probably guess where I learned it, but in case you can’t it was by listening to the NHK news podcasts.

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