Share you Lightbulb Moments!

Hey all!

I’m sure we all know exactly how frustrating learning Japanese can be, what with grammar and vocabulary only being the tip of the iceberg. Presumably it’s why a lot of us are here on Wanikani.

But that just means we have to keep at it, and I know there’s a bunch of posts out there about remembering your original motivation(s) (which is super important!), but I also thought it would be neat to talk about some of those little ‘ah-ha!’ moments. I find, at least, that those can really help me to know that I’m making progress, even if it’s in very small ways.

A lot of my favorite lightbulb moments revolve around noticing homophone name puns, so here are some of my favorites:

“Shizuka” Doumeki, from xxxHolic. This one isn’t even a homophone, his name just means quiet, which is so nail-on-the-head ironic.

“Bakugou Katsuki”, from Boku No Hero Academia. …Aka Baku, for bomb, and Katsu, for win.

Same thing with “Kaminari Denki” (lightning and electricity), “Sero” as in cellophane…aka tape…, “Tsuyu” meaning rainy season and “Asui” where sui means water…

BNHA has a lot of name puns. To be honest, I’m pretty sure they’re all puns, I just haven’t figured them all out yet. I’ll keep it in mind as a way to measure progress!

But besides character names, I’ve also had realizations about how “pacific” in pacific ocean makes sense (太平洋, “big flat/calm west/ocean”), and I made the connection between 見事 and the cute little kaito kid stamp I have that says みごと!

So I just wanted to post this as a place for those little lightbulb moments, whatever they may be. What are the tiny realizations you’ve had that show how you really ARE making progress, even if it’s just understanding a name pun?

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This is a small one I had yesterday. So 行動 is action and 取る is to take, and when I saw 行動を取る it was literally to “take action.” Felt pretty awesome to figure that out.

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Oh neat! I haven’t learned 行動 yet, but those kind of connections are always so satisfying to make.

I made a thread for stuff like this a while back if you want more of these :slightly_smiling_face:

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Oh, I didn’t see this when I was searching – thanks! (Didn’t meant to make a duplicate topic :sweat:)

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Don’t worry about it, it’s always really difficult trying to check for pre-existing threads!

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And in Japan, any place selling Manga and TV playing promotional stuff has 新時代 by Ado blasting in the store.

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