Category Archives: Word Origins

Japanese word origins: the strange tale of three “hashi” (Bridge, chopsticks, edge)

If you’ve studied Japanese for any amount of time, you’ve probably noticed that Japanese has many homophones, which are words that sound the same but have different meanings. Generally you can tell them apart from context (and there are also differences in intonation to help differentiate depending on the region, as well as kanji representation),… Read More »

Useful Japanese words: Expressing annoyance with めんどくさい (mendokusai)

When learning a foreign language, it’s important to learn a little bit about a lot of things: words, expressions, culture, etc. But it’s also important to learn a lot about a few things, namely those things that occur frequently in daily life. This post, falling in the latter category, is about an expression you are… Read More »

Several usages of “mono”(もの)in Japanese

“Mono” in Japanese (usually written in hiragana as もの, and sometimes in kanji as 物) is a word that has the basic meaning of “thing”, generally in the sense of a physical (often tangible) thing.  店でいいものを買ったよ (mise de ii mono wo katta yo) I bought something good (=a good thing) at the store. However this… Read More »

Omae (お前): a Japanese pronoun with confusing nuances

One significant difference between Japanese and a language like English is that words are more frequently omitted when they can be inferred from context. This applies to pretty much all types of speech: verbs, nouns, objects, and even particles (little grammatical helpers). In English, except for some special cases and slang usages, when referring to… Read More »

Japanese expression: どうにでもなれ (dou ni demo nare)

In this post I’d like to go over the meaning and derivation of the expression “どうにでもなれ” (dou ni demo nare). While this expression is made up of a bunch of basic words, the resultant meaning may surprise you. First, let’s look at the individual words with their basic meanings どう (dou) A question word that… Read More »