Most recent Japanese word you've learned?

追伸 - postscript (PS)

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顎(あご)- chin
I discovered this word reading the Japanese comments for the “swommeng anniemay” video.

I recently found out that when asking if someone has pets you say ペットを飼ってますか, and do not use arimasuka, which blew my mind actually.

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The classical 魑魅魍魎, evil spirits of rivers and mountains

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Generally speaking ある is not used for animals or people. If you use いる it’s fine, but less common for that specific question among natives.

Right. I was asking my language partner about pets on HT and they flat out didn’t get it, was a real eye opener as I talk about animals a lot on there (Japanese people seem to love pets).

Just need to remember the kanji now is all…

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きんのほし (gold star)
I’m unsure of myself during my weekly tutoring sessions, so today I joked that every time I got a sentence right on the first try, I’d give myself a gold star…then I just started saying “gold star” each time, and wanted to know how to say it in Japanese :slight_smile:

Edit: 金星 (きんぼし) apparently means approximately the same thing and is less cumbersome to say!

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真っ赤 - Deeply red

Heard this while listening to a podcast. Its sort of similar to the idea of 真っ黒, pitch black.

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泣き虫 - crybaby.

I always thought it was weird how often crybaby was used in anime and stuff since in English it is kind’ve a weak insult. But the kanji for this one makes it make more sense. Its literally crying insect, which seems worse than crybaby. But I suppose crybaby is still the right way to translate it.

It seems like insect is a common way to insult people in japan since I’ve seen 弱虫 (coward) as well.

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One interesting one is 真っ青, which has two things worth noting. The reading is まっさお, which is probably unexpected by some. Additionally, it can mean both “bright/deep blue” as expected, but also “white as a sheet”, because 青 itself has the meaning of “pale” when talking about skin. I’m pretty sure both have bad connotations (青 and 真っ青), like someone looks scared or ill.

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I had a feeling there would be more words in this same style! That’s interesting. Thanks for sharing.

It’s not just in anime, both 泣き虫 and 弱虫 came up in the Kawabata short story I just finished. And Kawabata won a Nobel Prize for literature!

konnichiwa

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!
My friend is named Aiko and I sometimes do janken with her. I always thought she meant her name by saying that… like “Aikoでしょう” = “Aiko will win for sure!”
… mind blown.

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大切にする - to cherish, to hold on to
A coach from captain tsubasa said it and I thought it was pretty interesting

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Just to clarify, isn’t it 相子? Though the Japanese Wikipedia entry just uses あいこ.

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Ah, you are right. My bad. IME failed me. Thanks for pointing that out.

was reading about verbs derived from proper nouns.
I had heard of ググる = to google.
but also: スタバる = to go to starbucks
i think it is cool that these conjugate as u-verbs (it seems like they would not “mix” the hiragana and katakana parts and would be ru-verbs… i have no basis for thinking that)

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Today I learned 平らげる (たいらげる) can also refer to eating in a more complete sense, as in “polishing off a meal.”

I also learned こないだ as a contraction for この間 (このあいだ).

By る-verbs, I assume you mean ichidan verbs (ones where you just remove the る to conjugate them). Those are all え段 or い段 before the る. So, I think it would just sound wrong to Japanese people to have a verb with an う sound or あ sound before the る conjugate that way.

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