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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').
Endō-san tanjōbi omedetō (Happy Birthday, Mr. Endō). San (さん), sometimes pronounced han (はん) in Kansai dialect, is the most commonplace honorific and is a title of respect typically used between equals of any age.
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.
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 ...
The Japanese characters explain it to the westerner who comes to see its wisdom. The phrase is also introduced or explained by Japanese or Japanese-American characters in books such as David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars. In the book The Hostile Beaches by Gordon D. Shirreffs, the character Lieutenant Carney says the phrase. When asked what ...
In Japanese culture, social hierarchy plays a significant role in the way someone speaks to the various people they interact with on a day-to-day basis. [5] Choice on level of speech, politeness, body language and appropriate content is assessed on a situational basis, [6] and intentional misuse of these social cues can be offensive to the listener in conversation.
Makurakotoba are most familiar to modern readers in the Man'yōshū, and when they are included in later poetry, it is to make allusions to poems in the Man'yōshū.The exact origin of makurakotoba remains contested to this day, though both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, two of Japan's earliest chronicles, use it as a literary technique.
Gairaigo are Japanese words originating from, or based on, foreign-language, generally Western, terms.These include wasei-eigo (Japanese pseudo-anglicisms).Many of these loanwords derive from Portuguese, due to Portugal's early role in Japanese-Western interaction; Dutch, due to the Netherlands' relationship with Japan amidst the isolationist policy of sakoku during the Edo period; and from ...