Should hopefully be a straightforward question, but essentially I was trying to think of how to say something to the effect of:
“Japanese culture is very interesting.”
When trying to come up with this, I thought of both:
和文化はとても面白いですね
and
日本の文化はとても面白いですね
After looking this up on DeepL, both seem to work, but I’m wondering if one seems more natural than the other, or if they mean different things? From what I can gather, 和 seems to have more of a meaning of core, traditional Japan / Japanese-ness, but I haven’t been able to find much on this. Any help would be appreciated!
5 comments
the usage depends on the word, but 和 in that usage isn’t a word on it’s own (*in this usage – it can mean sum or harmony).* it’s part of other words. like we say “english” but yet it’s “anglophile” not “englishphile” even though there’s no word “anglo”. some words have multiple synonyms, like 和食 and 日本食, but not everything works that way. it’s on a per-word basis.
DeepL is a great tool but just because it can figure out what you’re *trying* to say, doesn’t mean the sentence actually “works”. It’s designed to do its best to figure out the intended meaning rather than the literal interpretation that Google Translate is famous for, so it’ll often ignore errors in the original text if it can figure out what they mean.
This thread perfectly sums up this sub. People arguing about whether anglo and 倭 are words, but not answering your question.
和文化 is not really a word, but people will still understand, and if you say this people will imagine things like 茶道、剣道、歌舞伎. Japanese culture from hundreds of years ago that is still around. It will not refer to modern Japanese culture like anime or video games. Even if you want to talk about older Japanese culture, it is still better to use 日本の文化.
I don’t think you can always use 和 instead of 日本.
I think 和 is always used as a counterpart to 洋/Western or 漢/Chinese.
日本 can be used to mean just that, something Japanese.
和風建築(わふうけんちく) ↔ 洋風建築 : Japanese-style architecture ↔ Western-style architecture
和式(わしき)トイレ ↔ 洋式(ようしき)トイレ : Japanese-style toilet ↔ Western-style toilet
和歌(わか) ↔ 漢詩(かんし) Japanese poem ↔ Chinese poem
和食(わしょく) ↔ 洋食(ようしょく) Japanese food ↔ Western food
日本食(にほんしょく) includes the foods like ramen (originally from China even), curry-rice (originally from India), while 和食 definitely means the food that is original Japanese food.
Just so you know there’s another kanji 邦 lol
邦楽(ほうがく) ↔ 洋楽(ようがく) : Japanese music ↔ western music
邦画(ほうが) ↔ 洋画(ようが) : Japanese movies ↔ western movies
日本文化 sounds more natural for casual speech.
和文化 is very weird and I haven’t heard it used a single time, if it even is a thing.