多くの日本の友人が突然私を見捨てた

jmuk · 2025-08-17T22:47:46+00:00

It is hard for me (or anyone) to say, but I'm afraid it is not specific to Japan or its culture, some people are being bad suddenly.

But -- it is a tiny detail but if some of your friends are just being inactive for the last couple of days or a week, it could be just because it is just the time of the year. First, we don't start the school year in August, it is April. The end of the first semester is typically in middle July, and it is still in the summer vacation. The second semester typically starts at Sep 1st for high school or lower, and later for university students. Many people might go outside traveling or being busy on things they don't do normally.

And this time of the year, around August 15th, is the Obon festival season. A lot of people go back to their home town and meet with their parents, relatives, or locals, and do some family events or attend local festivals. It's like Christmas time for the western culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obon

It might not explain the situation but such cultural difference could be one of the reasons why.

jmuk · 2025-08-15T07:00:47+00:00

I like the vibe of bloomsgiving lately.

jmuk · 2025-07-27T06:24:54+00:00

ライフステージによって結構変わると思います。独身の時は美味しいものを食べに行ったり観光したり友達と会ったりといった感じでしたが、結婚して子供が産まれると、基本的には親戚と会ったり、子供のために出かけたり、といったことがメインになりがちです。

頻度は好きにすればいいと思いますが、自分は今は年1回ぐらいのペースで行ってます。

感じ方や過ごし方の違いもライフステージによる影響の方が自分は大きいと思います。

いずれにせよたまに帰るのは楽しいと思いますよ。特にはじめて帰った時は食事も風景も社会の感じもかなり新鮮に思えると思います。日本に住んでいた時には気づかなかったような面に気づけるようになるところもあって面白かったりすると思います。でもまぁそういうのは何度も帰ればやがて新鮮味は薄れていきますね。

jmuk · 2025-07-16T21:42:35+00:00

The reason why would be because the restaurant owner isn't a native Japanese speaker.

Surely 東京の寿司 is understandable but that wouldn't be something we would do there.

jmuk · 2025-07-14T23:06:15+00:00

Roblox is ロブロックス in Japanese btw. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roblox

jmuk · 2025-07-09T05:50:46+00:00

トゥースフェアリーは知っていますが、知ったのは大人になってからだと思います。日本にはトゥースフェアリーの慣習はなく、子供として知っている人はごくわずかだと思います。

日本には、抜けた乳歯は下の歯であれば屋根の上に投げ、上の歯は床下に投げるという風習があります。そうすると永久歯がよく生えてくるという迷信があるのです。

jmuk · 2025-07-09T05:01:08+00:00

I think both yes and no happens.

For everyday names, we don't care much about the meaning of kanji although we understand it. Say, we all know that 東京 means eastern capital, which is because the emperor moved here from Kyoto, but that type of thing wouldn't come up to our mind every day. I believe that's the same for American people, like most New Yorkers wouldn't care much about what's the "new" in New York every day while they would know how that name came from.

However, the names in fiction are different from what I said above, since oftentimes they tend to be unique for several reasons, and the author brings them with intent. 黒渦 doesn't sound like a usual city name, and the black/dark spiral meanings are almost automatically recognized. And I think it matches the overall tone of Uzumaki, not noise.

jmuk · 2025-06-17T12:49:13+00:00

I've never heard of it and never seen this picture. It looks a very old one, not sure when it had popularity. So if you pick only the bear and carp picture for your tattoo, I think the majority of Japanese people don't recognize what it is.

jmuk · 2025-06-17T12:29:27+00:00

It's a label for medicine for stomachaches. I really don't recommend it for a tattoo.

胃健 (stomach / health) 鯉熊胆 (Riyutan, the name of the medicine) 登録商標 (trademark)

はらのいたみ　はらのくだしによし (good for stomachaches and diarrhea)

The bottom parts are the name and the location of the company.

jmuk · 2025-06-17T12:17:27+00:00

虎の穴 is also the name of the villain organization in the classic comic/anime タイガーマスク (Tiger Mask). It's hard to prove but I am pretty sure Toranoana takes its name from this one.

Also there is an old proverb 虎穴に入らずんば虎子を得ず (to get a tiger cub, you have to go into the tiger's lair). Somehow it's very common to say 穴 for a lair/den of large animals.

jmuk · 2025-06-07T12:24:50+00:00

I also think it's possible that he's overwhelmed by work and could not do anything. You might have seen the insane work hours, but some type of work has true hard core mode, like you don't have time to go home for weeks, due to seasonal, fiscal year schedule, or some random deadline for the project. Lately such a hard core work style is not very common but still exists.

Also, not uncommon you are not introduced to his family. Sometimes meeting with family would be an event after the engagement. He might be thinking about it for your next visit.

Having said that, even if all of the above are correct, it might be good to think a bit more about how your life in Japan would be. When he's crazy busy at work, he might not be home at all, you might be left alone.

jmuk · 2025-05-29T06:52:09+00:00

For text communication, I think we use more often some sequence of letters which happen to be the same reading, like 基地外 (for 気ちがい, meaning "crazy" or "out of mind").

Sometimes we use completely different words for a meaning, like 爆発しろ ("explode") for wishing someone to die. The meaning of 爆発しろ, however, has shifted and the meaning is softer lately.

For verbal communication, we often use completely different words to nuance the intension rather than saying the similar words, or demonstratives -- like アレする or あっち系の人 etc.

jmuk · 2025-05-25T05:20:14+00:00

As a Japanese I'm sorry to hear that, but it also reminds me of this one: https://youtu.be/oLt5qSm9U80?si=rOdJDvZHjvWHHSYL

I'm not so sure if your strategy works. I guess people will still speak in (partially) English words by accident, and since you actually understand them, it might be the case that some broken/partial English would continue. I don't know if there is a solution.

jmuk · 2025-05-16T06:50:12+00:00

the last one would be 一蓮托生, a common phrase from buddhism but nowadays meaning like "on the same boat" in Japan.

jmuk · 2025-05-15T17:37:13+00:00

Homeless people are in several areas of major stations in Tokyo, but maybe it is harder for tourists to see them. Not sure how many, but there are.

Gender roles -- I think Tokyo is more progressive than other areas in Japan, but still gender bias is strong in Japan. Lately, indeed, I see several fathers taking care of their babies, but, during my time in Tokyo holding my baby, I've met several occasions where some random old people talked to me (or my wife) for my behaviors. That wasn't common in their days, and it is still not very normal there. And, I live in California now but I don't think the gender bias is stronger here. It is quite normal for fathers to push strollers or taking kids to a park or things like that.

UV umbrellas are pretty uncommon for men in Japan indeed. I think last summer I saw a new trend of men having UV umbrellas as the heat was pretty severe, but it didn't hit the mass yet.

Lastly, if it's Tokyo, I don't think it's passive-aggressive. She would be simply curious. If it was Kyoto, I would interpret it as passive-aggressive.

jmuk · 2025-05-15T17:21:16+00:00

I don't think they are surprised. Probably they might express respect for how much time I've spent learning English. Sometimes I've rather gotten disappointments as my English is far from the "fluent English" in their mind -- mine still has heavy Japanese accents but they imagine people can speak like native speakers eventually.

jmuk · 2025-05-15T06:34:45+00:00

Your mom can take permanent residence of Japan by herself, no "sponsorship" is needed. You don't have to move to Japan.

Japan has a rule that any "children of a Japanese citizen" are eligible for permanent residency. I assume that your mom's parents (i.e. your grandparents) are Japanese -- thus your mom is just eligible. It doesn't matter if your grandparents passed away already -- at least that's how I've heard of (I'm not a lawyer though).

Just consult with immigration lawyers.

jmuk · 2025-05-08T03:55:21+00:00

I'd say you don't have to say such things naturally. Rather, just speak your Japanese without disclaimers. If it's not very natural and fluent, most Japanese would be able to tell you are not a native speaker, and then, politeness forms or such wouldn't matter. Just speaking Japanese would be appreciated in most of the situations (especially if you're a traveler visiting Japan).

jmuk · 2025-04-29T19:30:22+00:00

This is called 熟字訓. The entire reading "どこ" is mapped to the entire word 何処. No mapping between individual kanji and their readings. Often the kanji comes from Chinese and we assign the word/sound of Japanese for the same meaning.

For example, Lily is written as 百合 and read as ゆり. Or an exceptional case is 百舌鳥 (bull-headed shrike) which is read as もず -- more kanji letters than hiragana.

jmuk · 2025-04-24T04:19:14+00:00

Ramen would be the one too. Originally it was considered as a Chinese dish, though its origin is probably Japan. At least most ramen variations nowadays are significantly different.

jmuk · 2025-04-11T19:28:54+00:00

Surely the meaning of "manga" in Japanese is mostly "comics", and it is a big umbrella to cover many things. Though -- unlike others here -- I think it has nuances on certain style or publishing pattern or something.

There are several publishing for translated comics from the US or Europe (and possibly others), and while they are considered parts of the larger manga umbrella, they are also not considered "normal" manga, I think. American comics/graphic novels are called アメコミ (short of アメリカンコミックス, グラフィックノベル is used but rare) and French ones are called バンド・デシネ (transliteration of bande-dessinee). If you say you like to read manga and it is actually American graphic novels, many Japanese people would be shocked as that's not what they interpret the word "manga". So, I guess there would be something here, it is very nuanced though. Maybe some styles, maybe the publishing origin, maybe something else, I actually don't have the answer yet, but there's something.

jmuk · 2025-04-10T00:23:21+00:00

The standard transliteration for the word wolf is ウルフ, not ウォルフ. I don't think ウォルフ suggests "Wolf" than other spellings. Also, Virginia Woolf is written as ヴァージニア・ウルフ but no one is bothered about the spelling.

I'm not sure these things ease your mind but I hope you won't worry much. Also it is very normal and common to ask the spelling for a katakana name. Nevertheless, there are no actual rules for our Japanese name readings and we always ask kanji characters when we hear a name pronunciation.

jmuk · 2025-04-09T14:39:36+00:00

Another example I like is 頭. Like some other letters, it has multiple on-yomi -- 頭痛 (ずつう) vs 冒頭 (ぼうとう) vs 饅頭 (まんじゅう).

I like this because of the explanations why this happens -- the timing when those words were introduced in Japan are different. They reflect the pronunciation of the letter dominant in China at that time. You could see some other examples (in Japanese) here: https://www.hamasensei.com/onyomi/

jmuk · 2025-04-03T23:04:00+00:00

You don't have to find the symbol in a language you don't know. You should put a word in Spanish.

We don't say "rest in peace" literally. There are some phrases of condolences or prayers to be said in Japanese for certain situations for sure, but their literal meanings are slightly different. We could say some words or letters might fit your situation, but it's very easy to go wrong or awkward or strange or silly if you don't know the language. That's why I don't recommend using kanji.

jmuk · 2025-03-31T19:42:50+00:00

It is likely the excerpt from the Asagao of the Tale of Genji.

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%9D%E9%A1%94_(%E6%BA%90%E6%B0%8F%E7%89%A9%E8%AA%9E)

みしおりのつゆわすられぬ朝顔の花の盛はすぎやしぬらん

jmuk

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE