Never heard くまねこin Japanese, but I know this kanji combination is used to refer to panda in Chinese. I am a native speaker of Japanese born in the 20C.
I don’t think it is in Japanese dictionary, and it’s certainly not expected to be known by everyone, but some do know that it’s Chinese word for Panda.
Lol well now you’ve sent me down a wikipedia rabbit hole … haha.
熊猫 doesn’t come up in any dictionaries, but jp wikipedia does give it as an alternate name — altho they have the pronunciation as シュウマオ not くまねこ. It also seems like maybe that usage is for “pandas” collectively, as in including both giant pandas and lesser pandas; while パンダ denotes the giant pandas specifically.
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Never heard くまねこin Japanese, but I know this kanji combination is used to refer to panda in Chinese. I am a native speaker of Japanese born in the 20C.
I don’t think it is in Japanese dictionary, and it’s certainly not expected to be known by everyone, but some do know that it’s Chinese word for Panda.
Lol well now you’ve sent me down a wikipedia rabbit hole … haha.
熊猫 doesn’t come up in any dictionaries, but jp wikipedia does give it as an alternate name — altho they have the pronunciation as シュウマオ not くまねこ. It also seems like maybe that usage is for “pandas” collectively, as in including both giant pandas and lesser pandas; while パンダ denotes the giant pandas specifically.
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From wiki:
>中国語では、パンダを熊猫（繁体字: 熊貓、簡体字: 熊猫、拼音: xióngmāo）、ジャイアントパンダを大熊猫（繁体字: 大熊貓、簡体字: 大熊猫）、レッサーパンダを小熊猫（繁体字: 小熊貓、簡体字: 小熊猫）と呼ぶ。これらの使い分けは、本項のパンダと同様である。「熊猫」の字義に着目すると、ジャイアントパンダと体格などの共通点に乏しい「猫」の字が使われていることは不可解であるが、原義はレッサーパンダのことだということを念頭に置けば理解しやすい。なお、現在の台湾ではジャイアントパンダの方は「猫熊」と呼ばれている。
The fact that people are saying they can’t even find this in dictionaries makes me wonder how you found this word
When all else fails, I use kotobank.
[https://kotobank.jp/gs/?q=%E7%86%8A%E7%8C%AB](https://kotobank.jp/gs/?q=%E7%86%8A%E7%8C%AB)
It doesn’t come up with the reading either.
My guess is, that reading may be a neologism amongst certain Japanese, but is much less than common.
how did you find this word ??? :3
Everyone here just says 「パンダ」; this is the first time I’ve heard of 「熊猫」. Thanks for the bit of trivia knowledge 😂
Probably [this article](https://zatugaku-gimonn.com/entry938.html) in Japanese will give more information?