Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (November 04, 2022)

3 comments

1. Why is 面白い (おもしろい) so often listed in dictionaries as ‘interesting, funny, amusing’? I get the ‘funny, amusing’ aspect, but I really don’t get the ‘interesting’ part.

   In English we can say *”The World War 2 documentary was interesting”*, but I feel like saying this in Japanese with 面白い makes it sound like *”The World War 2 documentary was amusing”*.

   It just seems like the word is ‘amusing’ or ‘amusingly interesting’ rather than a strictly context dependent thing. Am I wrong? Would people use this word and contextually understand that you can be interested in a war documentary without finding war ‘amusing’?

   Or, is there a better word to use instead for finding a more serious subject matter interesting? I don’t want to describe serious/cultural things as ‘amusing’.

2. what’s a more natural way to say this – it’s a tweet. i think the tweeter is saying they somehow started getting spam/messages in japanese on their twitter account even though they say koko kara

   どうやってこうなったかはよく知らんが月に一回の程度でここから日本語で出来てるメッセージ・スパムをもらうようになった。

   i came up with this from my hours of watching london hearts and ame talk and reading novels

   >!どうやってこうなったかはよく知らんが
   月一回のペースでこのアカに日本語でのメッセージやスパムをもらうようになった。!>

3. I’m curious why beginner materials that I’ve encountered don’t teach 麦茶(むぎちゃ) barley tea. They all teach お茶 green tea, some teach 紅茶(こうちゃ) black tea, but not 麦茶. Everyone I knows drinks and offers me 麦茶. Is it a regional thing?