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 14
Nakama Meaning: Comrade, Teammate and Friend in Japanese
Nakama means the people you belong with: teammates, companions, fellow members of a group, which is why it feels different from tomodachi, the everyday word for friend.
9 min readItai Meaning: It Hurts, Pain Words and Itai as Cringe
Itai is the word Japanese people shout when they stub a toe, but it also describes pain to a doctor, painful losses, and people or behaviour that make others cringe.
9 min readKami Meaning: God, Paper, Hair and Upper in Japanese
Kami is one of the best-known homophones in Japanese: the same two sounds can mean a god, a sheet of paper, the hair on your head, or the upper side of something.
10 min readWabi-Sabi Meaning: What the Word Really Means in Japanese
Ask a Japanese friend to define wabi-sabi and the most common answer is a pause, a smile and something like: it is hard to explain, but you know it when you see it.
10 min readKaizen Meaning: Everyday Japanese Word vs Business Method
In a Japanese doctor's office you might hear that your sleep habits need kaizen, and nobody means a continuous improvement programme.
9 min readKintsugi Meaning: The Craft, the Words and the Metaphor
Kintsugi is a repair: a broken bowl is joined with lacquer and the seams are finished in gold, so the history of the break becomes part of the object.
9 min readKomorebi Meaning: Sunlight Through Leaves and Other Light Words
Komorebi is the light that slips between leaves on a sunny day, and Japanese has a single, everyday word for it.
9 min readTsundoku Meaning: The Pile of Unread Books, and How to Read It
If you own Japanese books you bought with good intentions and never opened, Japanese has a word for your shelf: tsundoku.
9 min readJapanese Location Words: Ue, Shita, Naka, Yoko, Tonari and More
Japanese describes where things are with a small set of position nouns and one reliable pattern, and once you have both you can locate almost anything.
11 min readCountries and Nationalities in Japanese: Names, -jin and -go
Most country names in Japanese are katakana loanwords, and two suffixes, -jin for people and -go for languages, turn almost any of them into the words you need.
9 min readJapanese Nature Vocabulary: Mountains, Rivers, Sea and Sky
Japan is mostly mountains and coastline, so nature words come up constantly, from place names and train announcements to the way people describe a weekend away.
9 min readJapanese Illness and Symptoms Vocabulary: Netsu, Seki, Zutsū
When you feel ill in Japan, a few dozen words let you explain what is wrong, how long it has lasted and what you need, whether to a doctor, a pharmacist or your boss.
9 min readPractical guides
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