Advanced Japanese Colors
Like any language, Japanese possesses a myriad of vivid descriptive terms for color. This article will introduce some interesting differences and quirks about color in the Japanese language, and also offer a selection of beautiful Japanese color names so that learners can expand their vocabulary palette beyond simple (and vague) descriptors such as red, green and blue.
Japanese Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia. That’s a big scary term with a much less daunting meaning: any word that mimics a sound. In English, onomatopoeia consists of words like “boom”, “pop”, and “cock-a-doodle-do”.
Of course, Japanese also has onomatopoeia (which they call 擬態語 : ぎたいご). They have LOTS of it…
36 Cool and Obscure Words (WOTD Roundup)
For the last month or so, (almost) every day, I’ve been posting a #Japanese #WOTD on Twitter. Since information on twitter is quickly buried, I’ll leave a record here for the sake of data permanence…
Saying “You” in Japanese
Saying “you” in Japanese is much trickier business than in English. In English, we have just the one word, and we use it all the time. Japanese has a much broader vocabulary, but also a strong tendency to avoid using it.
Japanese vocabulary: crime words
Japan is one of the safest countries in the world, but not without its share of problems. Mostly, these problems amount to stolen bicycles and umbrellas (I had my own bicycle stolen last fall). Recently I played through 龍が如く３ (English title: Yakuza 3) on Playstation 3, so I had a chance to polish my crime vocabulary a little bit. Here’s a list of crime-related words which may or may not have been found in the game.
7 polite phrases foreigners aren’t supposed to know
One of the joys of learning Japanese is seeing that shocked and dumbfounded look on native speakers’ faces when you fire off a difficult word or phrase that even they probably wouldn’t have come up with. You get to smile snobbishly and think to yourself: Ha! you didn’t see THAT coming, did you!?
Nihonshock’s new vocab section
Following on yesterday’s graphical tweak of the site, I’ve added a new feature: Vocabulary.
These are basically short posts (just a paragraph or so) about a specific Japanese word that I thought was either interesting or worth talking about. The words included will (for the most part) be…
Japanese words for age
You may already know that Japan has the world’s longest life expectancy. But did you know that Japanese are also the most well prepared for their longevity with a vast array of special words for different ages? Although many (umm, almost all?) of these words are not commonly used, they’re still fun to know. And you never know what’s going to come up on a Japanese game show or in your izakaya parties. Here’s the list!
The many ways to say “I”
One of the many unique and intriguing features of Japanese is the vast selection of words you have available to choose from when you want to say “I.”Each of these words has a different connotation reflecting the speaker’s view of his/herself and relationship to the listener.
For this article, I’m introduce to you my personal collection of “I” words that I’ve encountered here in Japan (even if I’ve only seen them once or twice in obscure contexts). Hopefully, this list will help to prepare you for your own Japanese adventures.
Vocab power: stop saying “totemo”
Totemo means “very” in Japanese, also sometimes pronounced とっても/tottemo with a kicked “t” for added emphasis. Because it is so easy to pronounce, so broad in meaning and so simple in grammar, it is one of the most useful words in the Japanese language. “Power-words” like totemo great for speed-learning, and non-Japanese pick up on these words with unparalleled ease… However, all too often those learners end up clinging to these words to a far greater degree than they should and for a much longer time than they should…
More from Nihonshock…
