Most recent Japanese word you've learned?

ぜんざい :bowl_with_spoon:

Kanji form is indeed 善哉, though I haven’t seen it written with Kanji yet. (Some box designs / shop signs? I dunno.)

It is 喝’d in Mandarin. (Now, another Kanji meaning so different in Japanese.)

3 Likes

A few days ago I watched a Chinese film that happened to have both English and Mandarin (or was it Cantonese, I wonder? They were speaking Mandarin, in any case.) subtitles burned in (yeah, don’t ask… :man_shrugging: ).
Anyway, it was quite amazing to see familiar kanji (fine, hanzi) used in completely strange (to me) combinations :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

2 Likes

I would guess that Cantonese, Hokkien and most Chinese dialects, have Hanzi with mostly the same meaning to Mandarin, though combinations and grammar are different.

Just less difference compared with to Japanese, perhaps.

Also, spoon :spoon: looks a little different. / .

2 Likes

なまむぎなまごめなまたまご (yes of course this is one word)

6 Likes

Good ol’ 早口言葉!
I like 東京特許許可局 [とうきょうとっきょきょかきょく]

6 Likes

That’s a tough one!! I gotta learn it and bring it to taiko practice. We say tongue twisters while warming up sometimes lol

3 Likes

水を向ける【みずをむける】- to try and draw someone out, to fish for information
Cute :slight_smile:

5 Likes

醍醐味 だいごみ The real pleasure (of something); the great thrill; the true charm also the flavor of ghee as 醍醐 means ghee

Which fascinatingly enough is apparently the Buddha’s favorite food?

2 Likes

桑原桑原くわばらくわばら

  1. (exp, uk, JMdict [2025-05-16])
  • knock on wood
  • touch wood
  • heaven forbid
  • God help me
  • absit omen!
  • spoken to ward off misfortune
  1. (forms, JMdict [2025-05-16])
  • 桑原桑原
  • クワバラクワバラ
6 Likes

Maybe it’s also because of ritualistic reasons, which I find in Chinese counterpart of the article (and I still can’t really read). In any case, 醍醐 doesn’t seem be a currently used word, even if it may be true that it is similar to ghee. (I know the vocab is a food, just never bother to know what it really is nowadays.)

There might be a sutra somewhere, describing in details.

3 Likes

白星(しろぼし)を = scoring a victory

Jisho marks a sumo term, though it isn’t exactly sumo. I’ve seen a few other vocabs from this category too.

白星をあげる perhaps. I was thinking about 金星, but that’s not it => 金星(きんぼし)

2 Likes

Not a new word for me, but I did have reason to use it recently.

癇癪 - かんしゃく - tantrum

As an aside, my son is 18 months old.

13 Likes