Elements of Japanese that made you laugh/smile

I was about to write this one. But for me it reads more like “naked enemy”. I imaged samurai attacking each other while being naked. I will not ask which sword they were using in that situation xD

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Interesting take on this kanji 素, I always thought of it as ‘unadorned’, like the nature of something that has nothing attached to it. In which case I thought of 素敵 as ‘with no enemy’… But then again I guess the meaning doesnt matter so much if we know the meaning of the compound haha.

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Hmm…

Which kanji dictionary are you using? I use jisho only. (i am not exactly happy with it but it is free so…) It lists such a meanings for that one:

You made me nervous I was learning wrong thing the whole time :sweat_smile:

Edit:
After some thought: those meaning actually merge into “unadorned” if you thing about it 0_o. So it is 1 meaning not four…

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Hahah, no no, you are right, originally I thought of that kanji as ‘elementary’, but I eventually changed my thought to ‘unadorned’ after seeing it in many compounds. I usually write my own meanings for kanji after seeing them many times. For this one I always felt like the focus was on something ‘not attached’, rather than simply the naked/elementary state of something.

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Precisely

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Certainly not a primary entry I would want to think of unless you think of Shibuya as ‘diarrhea valley’.

It’s not something WK adds to their entry and if I saw 渋り腹, I would think of some GI blockage at first (that is probably painful) just from the usage of 渋滞 alone but I see the other variations of 渋る. So I wonder if this more associated to symptoms that the actual condition (plus there is other kanji like 痢 for words like 下痢 to describe it).

Anyways, I won’t forget this nuance now :slightly_smiling_face:

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Actually all three of us seems to be close enough for such a joke thread:

You have enemy that has nothing attach to him, so it is splendid easy job. Same with “weak” meaning: his as no weapons attaches so it is the same.

And my samurais have not even cloths “attach” so they can have fun with theirs “swords” which is splendid I guess?xD

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I think I would find likeminded person few thousand years ago in China. Creator of this kanji seems to be person I would have much fun with xD

I learned it from this word. I image people stoping their cars and running to the bushes to help themselves. It is not what is meant to mean but it if funny anyway.

I didn’t meet Shibuya in my reading yet, but I will remember kanji for it for sure. Thanks xD

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This one’s very simple, but I always thought 笑 looked like a cat face and that would make me giggle every time I saw. Quite fitting lol

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It is number one the most used kanji on twitter. Before I know it I was thinking that they use it regardless of its meaning as emoji xD

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I guess I should have used 笑 instead of lol :laughing:

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https://scriptin.github.io/kanji-frequency/

Here is the data. If you know 笑 and nothing else you can proudly say you understand 3% of Japanese twitter content. Which is more than any person will ever be able to read, so that an achievement indeed xD

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In my language spicy and sharp (like a knife) are the same word. Hot makes a lot more sense. There have been many times I accidentally said the food is sharp. And then I learned that sharp means a sour taste in english. Languages are confusing :joy:

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Actually it’s the same in Dutch, though you would probably would only say that about an ingredient, rather than an expression of a current experience.

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Similar in Polish:

Ostry means sharp or hot/spicy
Pikantny - spicy
gorący - hot

I never said “sharp food” but I remember replying to costumer wanting “hot pizza” (he didn’t know what to order so I ask what he likes) that we don’t sell cold ones.

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I like how 花火 (fireworks) literally translates to fire flower. It’s so poetic :white_heart:

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this kanji is my favourite:

It straight up looks like it was direct inspiration for Zetsu from Naruto:

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Why are we always picking on the Polish with jokes anyway?

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Because laughing at Scottish would be too easy. xD

(I am Polish, my wife is half Polish half Scottish)

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I always wonder how many of these came in with the Chinese versus were developed locally. The two characters words usually carry the 音読み/Chinese readings, and I suspect a lot of these interesting combinations may have come from there.

I think this also comes into play with individual characters sometimes.

One example being: 税金

I believe the Japanese system would have had rice for tax, not wheat, but here we see wheat popping up.

Or, 凍る, — why would the east be associated with cold in Japan, where the opposite is true generally speaking… (and north as well obviously)…

The etiology is interesting to ponder.

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