Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A bōnenkai (忘年会, literally "forget the year gathering") is a Japanese drinking party that takes place at the end of the year and is generally held among groups of co-workers or friends. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The purpose of the party, as its name implies, is to forget the woes and troubles of the past year, and hopefully look to the new year ...
Japanese commonly use proverbs, often citing just the first part of common phrases for brevity. For example, one might say i no naka no kawazu (井の中の蛙, 'a frog in a well') to refer to the proverb i no naka no kawazu, taikai o shirazu (井の中の蛙、大海を知らず, 'a frog in a well cannot conceive of the ocean').
A lazy greeting is regarded with the type of disdain that would accompany a limp handshake in parts of the West. The most common greetings are ohayō gozaimasu (おはようございます) or "good morning", used until about 11:00 a.m. but may be used at any time of day.
Ōmisoka (大晦日) or ōtsugomori (大晦) is a Japanese traditional celebration on the last day of the year. Traditionally, it was held on the final day of the 12th lunar month. With Japan's switch to using the Gregorian calendar at the beginning of the Meiji era, it is now used on New Year's Eve to celebrate the new year.
The Japanese language makes use of a system of honorific speech, called keishō (敬称), which includes honorific suffixes and prefixes when talking to, or referring to others in a conversation. Suffixes are often gender-specific at the end of names, while prefixes are attached to the beginning of many nouns.
Japanese uses honorific constructions to show or emphasize social rank, social intimacy or similarity in rank. The choice of pronoun used, for example, will express the social relationship between the person speaking and the person being referred to, and Japanese often avoids pronouns entirely in favor of more explicit titles or kinship terms.
Mochitsuki (餅搗き, もちつき) – A traditional activity for occasions like Japanese New-Year, rice is pounded into mochi and is eaten in hopes of gaining good fortune over the coming year. The activity is associated with the moon, jade, or golden rabbit, which according to East-Asian folklore, is said to pound rice (or the elixir of ...
Yojijukugo in the broad sense refers to Japanese compound words consisting of four kanji characters, which may contain an idiomatic meaning or simply be a compound noun. [3] However, in the narrow or strict sense, the term refers only to four- kanji compounds that have a particular (idiomatic) meaning, which cannot be inferred from the meanings ...