Most recent Japanese word you've learned?

竹光 which is a type of fake sword made from what appear to be Bamboo shavings, but then made in a way to look like a real sword.

自暴自棄 desperation; despair; self-abandonment​

Yeah, I hear this word almost every day at work. Very useful : )

Side-question off the top of my head : is there a word for the action of writing haiku?

Sorry if this is off-topic, I didn’t want to open a new thread just for that. :flushed:

You can try these out, but I don’t know how common they are.

句作
詠歌

During the latest lesson I had on Lingodeer, I learnt 暖か / あたたか / warm. The word got stuck in my head pretty quickly, but as a beginner, I keep stumbling over the repeated た in the word. What a tongue twister for Japanese language noob here!

I often hear native speakers merge the two た sounds, so it becomes あったか. It’s much easier that way.

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謙虚
けんきょ
Kenkyo

Humilty/Humble

I learned this in class, don’t remember the context exactly but it’s definitely a good trait!

I think the antonym is - 謙虚 | ごおまん | gōman.
Please correct me if i’m wrong!

P.s I found WaniKani an hour ago! Amazing resource.

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土砂災害 (どしゃさいがい) - Landslide - From a phone alert this morning. It was raining heavily, so from the first two kanji (earth and sand), and the last two, which mean “disaster,” I could guess the meaning, but a quick check on jisho when I got to work confirmed it. Good to know.

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煙突(えんとつ)- chimney
煤(すす)- soot

暖かかった (あたたかかった, It was warm) is a warm-up my college Japanese professor would have us practice in class before attempting readings. (She always aimed for newscaster speed and enunciation standards. Fun, but difficult.) Apparently, it is difficult even for native speakers at those speeds.

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頼りになる (たよりになる, to be reliable) from ドラえもん

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That’s why I prefer the casual pronunciation of あったかい over あたたかい.

During my iTalki lesson today:

画数 (かくすう) - stroke count

~画 (かく) - counter for number of strokes.

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Wow, I’ve always just said あたたかった, but when thinking about it, it should indeed be one more か in there O.o

Today I learned 閑散期(かんさんき)which is the off-period of a business.
Strangely I’ve never seen this before, but I always see 繁忙期(はんぼうき)which is peak/busy season :clock9:

Same! This also happened when I learned that I could say ちっちゃい instead of ちいさい, I never went back :laughing:

受取人 (うけとりにん) - Recipient.

From a receipt I’ve had sitting on my desk since I got back from Japan in October last year. It was from a bookstore where I grabbed a bunch of kids books that I plan to eventually go through.

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素因数 - そいんすう - Prime factor

From a blackboard during lunch, as the students had just finished math class.

And the corresponding 素因数分解(する) - そいんすうぶんかい - prime factorization, or to break down into prime factors.

I actually couldn’t remember the phrase “prime factor” when I was looking at the blackboard, but WK kanji knowledge and looking at the problems next to it let me understand.

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有り難う

Well, technically I already knew it, I just didn’t know there were kanji for it.

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相合傘(あいあいがさ)Sharing an umbrella

I love how Japanese has words for such things as this. And the composition makes so much sense that I managed to guess the kanji based on the phonetics.

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