返り血 - spurt of blood
3 Likes
弾劾 → ニュースをご覧頂きましう！
訴追 → 上記
1 Like
Just learned 元日 after discussing New Year’s with a coworker. So ready for it! 
1 Like
不凍液 (ふとうえき) - antifreeze liquid (guess who’s having to freeze-proof their house before vacation)
2 Likes
小年鑑別所 - Juvenile detention facility - しょうねんかんべつしょ
1 Like
Turns out ごうか has some rather diverse meanings, depending on which kanji you use, such as:
-
豪華 - luxury; splendidness; gorgeousness
-
豪家 - wealthy family
-
業果 - effects of karma
-
業火 - hellfire
-
劫火 - world-consuming fire
I got the word 太平洋 (Pacific Ocean) among my lessons, today, and it included the context sentence:
トーフグチームは、ごうか客せんで太平洋をわたる社いんりょ行をけいかくしています。
I wanted to look up the word ごうか客せん, which should have been 豪華客船 (“luxury liner”). My phone rendered 豪家客 (“luxury guest”) properly, but when I added the せん it turned into 業火客船, meaning something like “hellfire passenger ship”.
After splitting the two parts in half, it began to make a lot more sense. However, it’s enough to make me envision what the Four Yorkshiremen would’ve been like if it were about two people born into a 豪家, discussing the trillions of years they’d spent enduring the 業火 they’d racked up in their previous life, each insisting that their 業果 was 豪華 compared to what they’d gone through.
The Two 豪家men Sketch
“I wasn’t always born into a 豪家, though. Why, before this reincarnation, the only ごうか we had was the 業果の業火 I’d racked up in my previous lives. I was livin’ in a world of scalding hot iron, spending my days fighting my fellow prisoners with iron claws, as the ogres tortured us with weapons made of fire. Then I’d die, wake up, and do it all again for the next 1,6 trillion years.”
“1,6 trillion years? 豪華! I spent 13 trillion years in a 劫火, carrying heaps of red-hot iron while walking a tightrope suspended over a giant frying pan. Every time I fell of, I’d be drowned in burning hot oil as the chef chopped me into pieces. Then when I was on my break, the ogres would push me down against the hot iron floor, ten times as hot as the the one you had, and proceed to tie me up with burning, black ropes, and then they’d use the scorch marks to saw me into pieces while I was still alive.”
“Well, when I said it was 1,6 trillion years, I was only talking about my most recent reincarnation in hell. Before that I spent 106 trillion years getting ground to a pulp between two mountains of iron, ten times as hot as the floor of your 豪華ホテル there.
Then, if I was lucky, I’d wake up in a forest and see a beautiful woman at the top of a tree, blowin’ kisses at me. Sinner that I am, I’d climb up there, getting ripped apart by the razor-sharp leaves as I did, only to reach the top and find she’d ended up at the bottom of the tree. I’d climb up and down that tree until I was torn into a bloody mess, 'fore an iron elephant showed up and trampled me until I was as flat as a pancake, only to be resurrected 'tween them two mountains again.”
“Listen, erai-san. I didn’t spend my afterlife chasin’ tail and going on elephant rides in the crispy-cool mountainside. We had it tough.
I’d be locked up in an iron chamber for 852 trillion years, filled with fire ten times hotter than anything you had, where ogres would chase me around with a bow and arrow. When I couldn’t run anymore, they’d push me down on the floor and smash with with an iron club.
Then, for a refresher, they’d force my mouth open and pour melted iron down my throat.”
“Hai, but you try to tell that to the young people of today. Will they believe ya?”
這いつくばう & 這いつくばる
Meaning: “to grovel”; “to go down on one’s hands and knees”
1 Like
眉唾物 - fake, counterfeit, dodgy
Literally “eyebrow spit thing.” Apparently there is a saying, or there was a belief, that you couldn’t be tricked by a fox or a tanuki if you put spit on your brow.
Perfectly reasonable.
7 Likes
I like the kanji 這 for several reasons:
-
We don’t use it very often, but it is very relevant to a question that many Japanese learners ask very early on: “Why is 入 pronounced はい in 入る, but い in a bunch of compounds (and in 入れる)?”
Going off of Wiktionary’s description, it seems the answer is that 入る originally was a compound, 這い入る, which presumably ended up replacing the word 入る almost entirely, while related words such as 立ち入り and 入れる kept the “fossilized” form. -
It’s one of the most frequently-used characters in Chinese … due to “confusion”.
-
It gets used a lot in Nyaruko-san, and I am a man of culture.
Edit: Oh, and just to keep this on-topic:
-
西部劇・せいぶげき・Western (film genre)
-
口数が少ない・くちすうがすくない・being a person of few words; taciturn
-
主役・しゅやく・leading part; main actor; protagonist
Got these out of the phrase in Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links:
西部劇じゃ口数の少ねえのが主役の条件だぜ。
~ Being a man of few words is a requirement for a western film protagonist.
条件 is also new to me, but I couldn’t remember it when I was writing out the sentence, so I clearly haven’t learned it 
The rest can all be broken down into parts that I’m at least somewhat familiar with, so hopefully I’ll have a decent chance of remembering them.
3 Likes
I just learned 騒動（そうどう）riot, strife, rebellion, turmoil
related to 暴動 （ぼうどう）, no doubt!
宇宙人 (うちゅうじん) - space alien/extraterrestrial
Starting to take the dive into non-jouyou readings to prepare for Kanken pre-1
理 - reason, logic, natural way of things
6 Likes
身につける・to learn; to acquire knowledge. Lit. “attach to body”?
博打打ち・professional gambler
天分・one’s nature; talents; destiny. Lit. “part of heaven” 
羽目になる・to get stuck with (some job); to end up with (something unpleasant). Actually no, I don’t understand the word 羽目. Why is “feather eye” something that means “mess” and “awkward situation”?
天然キャラ・natural airhead; person prone to making silly mistakes
I also learned what the word “telescope” looks like in kanji: 望遠鏡. I already knew the word from the first ending song of Magi. It’s funny because the word “binoculars” 双眼鏡 appeared in my lessons today, and it reminded me of that particular ED somehow.
Also learned both the word 温床 and the word “hotbed” from lessons. I swear, I learn a lot of English because of Wanikani. And how to correctly spell a couple of words too. Thanks Wanikani! 
2 Likes
This actually has an (in my opinion) interesting origin. The compound 羽目 was originally used in the word 羽目板, which is basically “paneling” (or “wainscoting”). So interlocking wooden boards with minimal gaps.
With that said, part of its origin is also in other phrases where はめる is used, such as 「罠にはめられた」. The 「はめ」in these kinds of phrases became associated with 「羽目」because interlocking boards → not easily taken apart or removed → difficult situations to escape/get out of. Hence, 「羽目になる」.
That’s pretty much the gist of it. There’re a few other explanations, but 羽目板 is where 羽目 is derived from in basically all of them. As far as why paneling even uses 羽目, I imagine it’s taken from 羽重ね and 目板.
2 Likes
Since the bulk of my exposure to Japanese language is thru TV, either variety or dramas… was watching a variety show a few nights ago about bamboo, and one of the MCs said ‘shinrinyoku’ (森林浴), or ‘forest bathing’, replenishing yourself by immersion in nature.
I pause to look up tons of words watching subbed JDM TV… but that one stuck.
3 Likes
手作り（てづくり）- handmade, hand-crafted, homegrown.
All I can think of is Crazy Redd from どうぶつの森 with your word and description XD
確保 - securing; obtaining; ensuring; guarantee; maintaining; belay; belaying
用途 - use; service; purpose
原告 - plaintiff; accuser; prosecutor
被告 - defendant; the accused
州兵 - National Guard (esp. USA); National Guard member
部隊 - force; unit; corps; echelon; element
差し 控える - to be moderate in; to be temperate in; to not do too much of; to refrain (from doing); to withhold (an announcement, comment, etc.); to be beside; to be close by
地主 - landowner; landlord
所有権 - ownership; dominion; ownership rights; proprietorship; property rights
一連 - series; chain; sequence; two reams (i.e. 1000 sheets of paper); verse; stanza
1 Like
登場人物 (とうじょうじんぶつ) - character in a play or book