Hm, it seems へきへき is slang for へきえき, and へきへき is listed in Jisho.com as another form.
If we can’t trust Jisho, I’m not sure what else to use. I’m not at a level to use a monolingual dictionary.
Two things,
hekiheki isn’t listed as an alternative form. That’s hekieki written in katakana.
Yes, jisho has mistakes and monolingual dictionaries are objectively better. You don’t need to be able to use one to figure out that hekiheki isn’t a word. Just search for it and take note that there are 0 results.
Oh I misunderstood, I thought you were talking about the other forms at the bottom of the word.
Regardless, lots of English sources contain incorrect/non-exhaustive information and jisho is certainly one of them. Its up to you to choose what to believe, and if you choose believing English sources over japanese sources on the Japanese language, that’s of no particular importance to me…but I would advise against it as a fellow learner.
To get the thread back on track: 囈語: nonsense (speaking)
1 Like
Not quite yet, I don’t think my Japanese is quite that advanced. But This one popped up with a google search so I have been trying to remember it as the Sino-Japanese war does not ring bells if you talk about it when my friends say “Hey what are you learning about right now” they are like huh? What’s that? So it’s good to know the Japanese word.
1 Like
Jisho uses freely available resources that people can contribute to. You could offer a change suggestion to the database JMDict if you wanted. And if it was accepted Jisho would change to reflect the new information in the database.
But reading what @Vanilla linked to, it’s basically like a dictionary including something like “supposably” as an alternative pronunciation for “supposedly.” Or “fustrating” for “frustrating.” Those are legitimately pronunciations you will hear people say sometimes, but at the same time a large number of speakers consider them to be mistaken or non-standard (to be clear, supposably is a word, but it means something different from supposedly). So it comes down to where you draw the line with regard to these “just repeating what they thought they heard” pronunciations in the dictionary.
I can see arguments for having them, and I can understand why a dictionary wouldn’t have them as well.
1 Like
Yeah, mishearings are a bit of a stretch in my own personal opinion. Like do I wanna see incest appearing as a note in a dictionary entry under incense? Not really necessary imo.
Japanese dictionaries will, however, let you know common misreadings. Like 舌鼓, for example has:
〘名〙 (誤って「したづつみ」とも)
at the top.
And then you have things like 依存 which im pretty sure is “supposed” to be いそん, but nowadays most people pronounce it as いぞん anyways and its listed as a valid alternative reading.
Either way, Japanese dictionaries do a good job (unsurprisingly) at letting you know which readings for words are legit. Even if they feel hard to navigate, the readings and alternate readings will usually be right at the top followed by a とも so you don’t have to worry about reading any japanese.
And while I’m here, got another 之 四字熟語 to add to the pile: 一日之長. Misread it as いちにちのちょう at first rather than いちじつのちょう, but some dictionaries say that reading is valid actually which makes it an interesting choice for this reply now that I think about it. Regardless, I’ll stick with remembering it as じつ.
3 Likes
Started 赤いカブトムシ today and was expecting an easy read, but some fun phrases pop up occasionally:
怖いもの見たさ - the curiosity/urge to look at something scary/unpleasant
@adamstan something for your urban interests:
西洋館 - standalone western-style house (pre-WWII typically, but pictures from the Web show more modern examples)
4 Likes
I just came across 鮨屋 and…WHAT
鮨 was a thing all along?! How the hell have I never seen it until now…Or maybe I have and just didn’t learn it…
4 Likes
Maybe not learned, but it took me 175 episodes of Shikuhakku podcast to realize what she meant saying what I thought was かれち! Colloquoical かれ or what?
It was カレッジ 
aka College.
1 Like
It’s hyogai, so you probably haven’t seen it.
I was looking at that kanji going “what is that… finger-fish?”, and it turns out I wasn’t too far off. 
2 Likes
To be fair, nearly half the kanji I have seen at this point are hyougai lol. Normally I have a file with half the books I’ve read that I would search through but I don’t have my computer T_T.
1 Like
Children’s story, they said…
腹話術 - ventriloquism
(It was spelled in kana though, so perhaps that’s fair game?)
1 Like
What do you mean by fair game?
As in fair game for learning a new word as opposed to be a word he already knew?
I’m not sure I see what the difference would be (between kanji, kana, etc). If the word was new to you, it wouldn’t matter if you only heard it even, right?
I interpreted fair game to be fine to use in a childrens book, no?
1 Like
Oh, you mean like… one wouldn’t expect the word in a children’s book, but because it was in kana that makes it fair game to be in a children’s book.
I guess that interpretation makes sense for what fair game meant.
Wouldn’t surprise me to see the word in a book for children though, so maybe that’s why I didn’t understand it at first.
That’s exactly what I meant. From the kana and the context it was easy to figure out what ふくわじゅつ means, but I was still a little surprised. Also, not sure if English has a less “fancy” term for it. Belly-speaking? That’s what we call it in my language.