Vocabulary and phrases
Practical guides on speaking, grammar, pronunciation, listening, and study planning, written for learners who want to use Japanese in real life.
Vocabulary and phrases · Page 11
One Piece Japanese Vocabulary: Kaizoku, Nakama and Pirate Speech
Kaizoku (海賊) means pirate, and kaizoku-ō (海賊王) is king of the pirates. The hero's famous line, kaizoku-ō ni ore wa naru, puts the goal first for emphasis; the textbook order would be ore wa kaizoku-ō ni naru.
8 min readJujutsu Kaisen Japanese Vocabulary: Domain Expansion and Beyond
Jujutsu Kaisen (呪術廻戦) is built from 呪, curse, 術, technique, 廻, to go around, and 戦, battle. Its most famous phrase, ryōiki tenkai (領域展開), domain expansion, joins two words you are more likely to meet in a business report: ryōiki, a field or domain, and tenkai, rollout or development.
8 min readShiritori: Rules of the Japanese Word Chain Game
Shiritori (しりとり) is a Japanese word chain game: each player says a noun that begins with the last kana of the previous word, and whoever says a word ending in n (ん) loses.
8 min readGoroawase: Japanese Number Wordplay From 39 to 4649
Goroawase (語呂合わせ) is Japanese number wordplay: each digit has several short readings, so a string of digits can be read as a word. 39 becomes sankyū (thank you), 4649 becomes yoroshiku, and 29 becomes niku, meat.
8 min readLongest Japanese Words: Kanji, Compounds and Jugemu
There is no official longest Japanese word, because Japanese builds long words by joining shorter ones without spaces. The interesting cases are long readings packed into one kanji, such as kokorozashi (志), compounds that keep growing, long katakana loanwords, and the comic name Jugemu.
7 min readShogi Vocabulary: Piece Names, Key Terms and Everyday Idioms
Shogi (将棋) is Japanese chess, played with flat five-sided pieces marked with kanji. The words to learn first are koma (pieces), ōte (check), tsumi (checkmate), naru (to promote) and mochigoma (captured pieces that you can put back on the board).
8 min readJapanese Food Names With Literal Meanings: Oyakodon and More
Many Japanese dish names are small jokes or pictures. Oyakodon (親子丼) is a parent-and-child bowl because it combines chicken and egg, tsukimi udon (月見うどん) is moon-viewing udon because of its round yolk, and medamayaki (目玉焼き), a fried egg, is literally a grilled eyeball.
8 min readJapanese Buzzwords of the Year: Ryūkōgo and How They Form
Ryūkōgo (流行語) are buzzwords: words and phrases that suddenly everyone in Japan is saying. Each December the Shingo Ryūkōgo Taishō (新語・流行語大賞), the new words and buzzwords awards, names a top ten and a grand prize for the year.
7 min readJapanese Wagashi Sweets Names: Daifuku, Dango, Dorayaki and More
Wagashi (和菓子) are traditional Japanese sweets, most of them built from rice, sweet bean paste and sugar. The names you will meet first are daifuku, dango, dorayaki, taiyaki, yōkan, monaka, manjū and warabimochi.
8 min readJapanese Relative Time Words: Ototoi to Shiasatte, Saki and Kondo
Japanese relative time words sit on one line with today at zero: ototoi to asatte for days, sen, kon and rai for weeks and months, kyonen to rainen for years, and a few words, like saki and kondo, that point either way.
13 min readJapanese Time of Day Words: Asa, Hiru, Yūgata and Yoru on One Dial
Japanese divides the day two ways: clock words, gozen and gogo, split it exactly at noon, while daylight words such as asa, hiru, yūgata and yoru follow the sun and your routine, so their edges blur and shift with the seasons.
13 min readJapanese Large Numbers: Man, Oku and Chō Beyond Ten Thousand
Japanese names large numbers in blocks of four digits rather than three: man is ten thousand, oku a hundred million and chō a trillion, so a million is hyakuman, ten million issenman and a billion jūoku.
12 min readPractical guides
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