What's a word you thought you'll never use and is actually very frequent in your favourite type of content?

I stumbled upon 地層 yesterday (stratum; geological formation; layer) because that’s where Jenova is found in FF7.

I ask the question because when you start learning and you see a fancy word you think ‘I’ll never use this’ but that often turns out to be wrong.

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死ぬ and all forms of it. I doubt I will ever talk about death, but it is so common in all types of media, since if I did, I would use 亡くなる since it is less direct, from what I understand, when talking about someone’s passing.

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Alot. Nothing in my mind rn though.

干渉 was one of my leeches until recently that I thought I’d never see that much of outside of WK but it kept popping up while reading コンビニ人間

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I’m playing ffxiv right now, so 霊災 (Reisai) or in English is called umbral calamity) is a term that when googled is pretty much ONLY in ffxiv in both languages. So, there’s that, but it is pretty foundational word to the game as it is the thing you need to stop from happening over and over.

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Not quite frequent, but I didn’t really think I’d come across 染まる as often as I do.

Just recentlyI saw it used to describe someone getting mad:

母親の顔が赤く染まる

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I learnt 消毒 in February last year and remember thinking that I probably wouldn’t ever need that…and in the last year I’ve probably seen or heard it every couple of days.

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I will probably never forget the word 緊急事態宣言… :frowning_face:

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Speaking of that, 冒険者 is a word I learned outside of WK that is used a ton in everything I play and read.

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@Myria Indeed. Not a word you’d think you would encounter a lot.

@alo I learnt it when I bought ホビットの冒険 and now I see it everywhere as well.

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かき氷, as just 1 day after learning it, I found it in the VN I was reading.
Then I also immediately encountered 自決 in Made in Abyss.

I thought I would never see it outside the context of like, dying one’s hair, but I heard it in a song in a different context recently. Lol.

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Agreed! I also encountered it recently in a metaphorical context, where an assistant coach for a baseball team, upon being given control over the B team, says something along the lines of: 俺色に染まっていくわけ

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