What's the most useless word/phrase you have ever learned?

Japanese
#1

I think we all have at least one thing that we have learned in our Japanese language journey where we thought ‘wow, why did I learn this?’. It could be a word, a phrase, a kanji, or any number of other random facts that we feel that we will almost definitely never need.

I will kick things off with mine. :leg:

Behold … 媧 :snail:
The kanji used for a mythological snail goddess. :thinking:

Reason for learning - It was part of the name of one of the characters in the manga ‘Kingdom’, so naturally I assumed it was just another name kanji and should learn it. Turns out that because that series is based in China, the goddess in question is actually Chinese. This means that the kanji itself is also basically never used in Japanese. :man_facepalming:

But here is an article about the goddess in question for those interested! :rofl:

I would love to hear what you guys have learned that you think you will never need!

8 Likes
#2

I found 原生生物 while playing Pikmin 3 a while back. I think it means protozoa or some biological thing. I’m not big on learning Biology, nor learning Biology in Japanese, but I am pretty confident I won’t see that one in the wild very often lol

5 Likes
#3

Probably 司法書士 しほうしょし (Judicial Scrivener), I added it to my reviews back in the day where I added any i+1 sentence I encountered… While I know the word in English from repeated exposure to crime series, I don’t even know the word in my native language, shows how often I’ll probably need it :stuck_out_tongue:

7 Likes
#4

Griffier!

Groetjes.

(Sorry to Dutch. Move along. Nothing to see here.)

4 Likes
#5

It’s gotta be 日本語は上手ですね

14 Likes
#6

Nihongo wa uete desune

9 Likes
#7

A certain word which, apparently, is old fashioned, and is a combination of two kanji that literally means “village-heart”.

4 Likes
#8

Haha, weer wat bijgeleerd, bedankt!

(For our English friends : “Haha, learned something new, thanks!”)

4 Likes
#9

Probably 行政訴訟 - Administrative litigation. Don’t know where I learnt it, not perfectly sure what it means and haven’t seen it since. It did however make me reconsider how I was memorising words that didn’t mean much to me in either english or japanese. For example 戊辰戦争 could just be the boshin war but “Imperial vs Shogunate 1868-1869” is much more useful, or 柳葉魚 is a shishamo smelt which is a type of fish and more usefully defined as “Small silver fish - name comes from ainu”

3 Likes
#10

I kinda have a problem to remember even useful things, so I have nothing to add to this topic :joy:

5 Likes
#11

Back in college, in Japanese 302, one of our vocabulary words was 貿易摩擦: economic trade friction. It became a running gag in our class because none of us would ever need to talk about economic trade friction. But ironically, that phrase helped me learn 貿易 and 摩擦 individually over a decade later.

6 Likes
#12

It’s “jouzu,” not uete, because its read with onyomi, and the readings you put are kunyomi

1 Like
#15

I remember one of th first kanji they teach you in wanikani is 斤, the bread counter. Apparently most Japanese people don’t even know this one, so. That’s gotta be up there.

8 Likes
#16

Currently level 43 in Wanikani and I still forget that one exists! haha

1 Like
#17

倀
Ghost of one devoured by tiger

This kanji showed up on a document my wife was working with when we still lived state-side.
This was entirely an English document with this character in one of the fields for some reason. I was about 200-300 Kanji into Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji at the time (couple years ago, didn’t continue after my first trip to Japan as knowing Kanji meaning without pronunciation didn’t do much to help me… Still remember many tho as I come across them in WaniKani)

So, being that I had an interest, along with access to Jisho, I looked it up.

倀
When they got the answer of ‘Ghost of one devoured by tiger’, they were pretty confused. I still remember this Kanji even tho I’m pretty sure I will NEVER see it again in my real life.

4 Likes
#18

How random is that? They are both super common radicals too.

3 Likes
#19

I probably have loads of these but the only one that comes to mind right now is: 蕨 yeah, it’s used as a part of ‘warabi mochi’ but errr, other than that one dessert… and it’s usually always written in hiragana anyway? umm? yeah, lol

1 Like
#20

四捨五入 - rounding (fractions); rounding half up;

3 Likes
#21

Right! So easy to remember for something that I will never ever see again.

3 Likes
#22

No, I’m pretty sure it is Ue Te. Up is Ue (上 like 上野), Hand is Te (手 like 手紙, letter). That obviously means that his Japanese is up-handed. Kind of like saying his Japanese is Jyouzu.

1 Like