I was in Osaka recently shooting a travel program for TV Tokyo. During one of the interview segments I told the interviewer that i was interested in 見物 (sightseeing, according to my hard-earned wanikani vocab!) and he gave me a look but i didn’t think much of it. Later on in the program I used the vocab again, (Japanese TV is very repetitive) and the producer told me to please stop using that word because it doesn’t mean sightseeing. I was super confused so once we wrapped for the day, I checked my wanikani app and double checked on a dictionary app and it came up as sightseeing.
Does anyone have any insight on this vocab? Is it impolite to use on TV or is it just a super antiquated way of saying sightseeing?
which makes it seem like 観光 is more for tourism-y things (I guess what people would think of when you say sightseeing specifically) where 見物 is for watching things of interest
I’m too slow, I guess, but to add, this is from a Japanese dictionary for 見物：
催し物や名所旧跡などを見て楽しむこと。「芝居を見物する」「高みの見物」
I think this roughly translates to “watching and enjoying entertainment and famous historic places,” which is basically what @Cassykins said
WaniKani doesn’t teach how to use vocab. I wouldn’t recommend using any word you learned here without more research. Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way, unfortunately.
WK doesn’t explain the nuances, politeness register, or cultural expectations of any words sufficiently really.
But you can read it if you see it written in kanji.