The idea of the thread is simple: When I learned kutusita, it was intuitive and easy to remember because it made sense as "under shoe."
There are undoubtedly many such words in Japanese that can be understood quickly, so why not try to learn them?
Any level is OK! Just post new words that clicked for you, and importantly, WHY.
by CitizenPremier
10 comments
波風 なみかぜ a nice word for strife and trouble
物取り ものとり a thief – very obvious
空き巣 あきす a burgler, someone who raids an empty nest
気を取れる to get distracted – taking your 気
I really like the word 矛盾, contradiction, yeah, why would you have a halberd and a shield at the same time.
Always seems random which words stick well for me, always an interesting phenomenon when it happens! And happy when it seems I get some vocab for free!
物理 – butsuri – physics / physical. This just sounds like what it means for some reason
老舗- shinise – old legendary brand or company. Every time I use this Japanese ppl are like wtf that’s an impressive word to use but to me it just stuck when I first looked it up and as a foreigner it just seems like a regular ass word lol
初心者 – shoushinsha – beginner. This one stuck immediately, maybe cause it’s catchy to say. The words for intermediate and advanced I can’t for the life of me get to stick.
懐かしい – natsukashii – nostalgic. This ones common but still remember it sounding like it means and never forgetting it! 懐かしいな！
its not a common word but i love to use 長椅子 as an example for this: long+chair=couch/bench!
靴下 instantly make sense for me too but the more I think about it I don’t even understand why. The socks are definitely NOT under my shoes.
有機 (organic) also instantly make sense for me. But also I don’t know why the presence of machine would implies organic, but it does for me.
不器用 – clumsy
人工 – artificial
Feels like 天才is the ultimate example of this.
I love the wanikami pnemonic for 下手 which is that usually an unskilled person is a hater.
脳 being the radical for meat and then the right side is the same as for worry 悩み. Like, yes. My brain IS worry-meat.
Or the kanji 藻. Algae is leaf stuff and kinda like a little tree in water.
傘 too. Big umbrella with four people.
At first, I couldn’t remember 空港 (くうこう) very well until I said aloud “interesting that the japanese word for airport has the kanji for sky and port… wait a minute”
Really didn’t click that English had similarly used a compound word for airport until I said aloud the English translations to each kanji, lol
Literally anything with [tree/ki] in it. Idk why but that was literally the first kanji I learnt and like. Yea. That’s a fucking tree. And now I can recognise every single word that uses that kanji, for some unknown reason.
I am like… sub-N5. My grammar is awful. I barely know any kanji. I’m a busy college student who only started learning a couple months ago. And yet. Whenever I see that kanji. I know.
[No real kanji because my keyboard settings are locked to english and I’m too lazy for copypaste].
不動産 (fudousan)
If the only other language you know is English, this probably doesn’t make immediate sense, as it translates to “real estate”, but English is actually an odd one out here.
In other European languages the word is usually a word related to “immobile/immovable” so this word makes a lot of sense. Additionally it made me realize why those other languages often called pieces of furniture with a word related to “mobile/movable”.
It feels great when several things just clicked at once.