『今日の日本語』 Japanese Word of the Day

Growing up, remember when you watched children TV programmes and they had the 'Word of the Day' segment? That was fun, wasn't it?

I remember watching Sesame Street and they have that section, which is really good for learning languages in small bits each day. It's even better when it's tied to an incident, story or example, which makes remembering new vocabulary less of a pain!

At Goalist, we mostly use Japanese to communicate our day-to-day in the office. The awesome thing though, is that we do have a handful of international staff as well, myself included in the demographic :D and our Japanese colleagues are very open to learn and exchange linguistic knowledge, making it an accommodating environment at work.

Being an international person working in Japan has its own set of challenges, and a big one is the linguistic barrier that could tie down one's confidence (maybe that part is just me).

Depending on how well equipped in Japanese you are and how diligent you are at practicing it, more so at the beginning of your career life in Japan, chances are you will find yourself struggling with getting the right words out when asked to share your opinion or comprehending continuous strings of sentences being thrown about during meetings and in daily conversations with colleagues. While it may be an arduous task trying to comprehend a truckload of Japanese in a day's work, learning one word a day isn't too overwhelming right? Plus it can be a fun way of getting to know your colleague better and be less of a hermit (yes that's me).

While I'm able to speak Japanese on a daily conversational level, I still often have to ask the meanings of certain words to get a better understanding in order to have a sensible continuous chat with my colleague. Trust me, by not doing so, our conversations may sometimes pause abruptly with a "hmm??" and an "eh??" like sudden a network interruption, which happens rather often ^^; but that's all part of the fun as well (｡￫∀￩｡)

One day, while looking out the window, my office seat neighbour L-san, casually mentioned...

L-san  : 今日天気が荒れてるね…
              (Kyou tenki ga areteru ne...)
Me       : そうですね… 
              (Sou desu ne...)
              < brain dictionary: since it was raining rather heavily, briefly       
                 deciphers new term "areteru" as bad weather, rainy, dark > 
              < brain for human socializing: dude, don't guess it, confirm the                             meaning so you really know what exactly is going on and not                             embarrass yourself, please >
             : …「荒れてる」って…
              (...areteru tte...)
L-san  : あぁ〜
              (aahh~)
               < googles "荒れる　英語" >
            :  ...stormy weather? rough weather?
               < points at weblio result >
Me       : あ〜！！なるほど〜！！
               (ahh~! naruhodo~!!)
L-san  : 天気が荒れるって日本語でよく言いますよね。
               (Tenki ga areru tte nihongo de yoku iimasu yo ne.)
               < L-san continues to explain other words describing weather in                           Japanese >
Me       : あっ！！いいね！書いた方がいいね！
               (ah!! ii ne! kaita hou ga ii ne!)
              < begins typing on a new memo >
              …『今日の日本語』、毎日覚えたら上手になれるかもね！
               (..."Kyou no nihongo", mainichi oboetara jouzu ni nareru kamo ne!)

With that, I decided to make good use of the learning opportunity by attempting to keep a nice set of Japanese Word of the Day list! It surely makes learning and remembering a foreign language much more fun and rewarding, especially with friendly colleagues who are willing to explain meanings and nuances of Japanese words and phrases on the spot, and in a natural exchange, I try to make out the English equivalent that they can pick up on. It's a good two-way street ;)

So, how's my collection going so far? Here they are:

...well, I didn't manage to keep a daily record, but most of them here were tied to interesting conversations that makes recalling these words way easier than memorizing drily from a textbook ^^; 

Looking forward to enlarging this collection over the next couple of months and hopefully, this will come in handy to someone someday too! ;)

*yes, if you may have noticed, I personally prefer using 'international' rather than 'foreigner' when addressing non-Japanese people from overseas countries. I could use foreigner, but that sounds a little distant so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Header credits:
Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
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