The purpose of this thread is to learn new words easily.
It doesn’t have to be the real word root, even if it sounds like an English word, for example 不可能 means “impossible” and sounds a bit like “fuck no” and that’s good for this thread.
I said I wanted to keep doing this type of thread and I’m keeping my word, here’s the last one: https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/hb97cp/%E9%9D%B4%E4%B8%8B_thread_post_words_that_were_instantly
22 comments
反逆罪 はんぎゃくざい: treason (oppose, opposite, sin)
there are a lot of words like this for me so i guess just thinking of the ones from today that are still somewhat in my memory rn, we have 真紅 易々 算段
Fun thread idea! Here are some words I saw today in 同志少女よ、敵を撃て:
* 反問 = (anti, question) retort
* 冷血 = cold-blooded
* 眼前 = (eye, before) before one’s eyes
* 戦死 = (war, death) killed in action
* 雪中 = (snow, middle/inside) in the snow
* 小高い = (little, high) slightly elevated
* 猟犬 = hunting dog
* 眉根 = (eyebrow, root) part of the eyebrow closest to the nose
I felt like a genius when I saw 補聴器 (supplement – hearing – device) for the first time and knew exactly what it meant (hearing aid).
There’s 新聞 (‘new text’ for newspaper), 電車 (‘electric car’ for train). Some kanji are easy too like 森 (forest).
海王星 – かいおうせい – ‘ocean king star’ as the name for the planet Neptune really made me laugh. I got it on WaniKani so I didn’t find it in the wild, but it really felt like I’d burned it instantly.
春巻き – spring roll
the first I can remember is probably 不正解
見殺し – (watch/see, kill) Letting someone die without helping them
I came across this one in a game the other day and I immediately intuited it though it was new to me.
缶. Pronounced かん. It means can🥫
手首 makes me giggle. “Hand neck” aka *wrist*.
水気 water atmosphere = dampness/moisture
水玉 water jewel/ball= water drop
反語法 anti word principle = irony
語気 word vibe = tone
化学 change science = chemistry
無理数 nothing logic number = irrational number
Always liked 狂犬病(きょうけんびょう) “Mad Dog Disease = Rabies”
目撃(する) – もくげき = (Eye, Attack) (To) Witness
To witness something means that one’s eyes can be used as a weapon in court. Blew my mind.
You can add 者 at the end of it to mean “A witness”
first one that comes to mind is 皆殺し (everybody + kill = massacre). easy to remember ’cause, well, EVERYBODY dies in a massacre.
ハリネズミ🦔Hedgehog=Needle mouse
小石 Pebble=Baby rock
This is the best Kanji study motivation thread I ever saw
One example in my case is 各駅停車 (each, station, stop, car) for a local train.
My favorite,
糖尿病 which means diabetes but if you can read kanji, it’s sugar piss disease.
空気力学 – Aerodynamics. I read it translated first so it wasn’t “instantly understood”, but it makes a lot of sense.
吸血鬼 – sucking blood demon
手袋 (gloves) which means bags for hands. Since then, kanji makes more and more sense to me. 今日 (today), means now day. And 家具 (furniture) means house tools.
First time in Japan, my Japanese was shakey. I needed new shoelaces as all the walking through the snow (Tokyo had a big snow storm 2018) hard torn mine up.
Not knowing the word for shoelace, I was at a loss and just asked forくつ + ひも. Turns out that’s the actual term.