This may sail or fail, but I was thinking of starting a thread where we shared with everyone something interesting that we learned recently.

For example, I discovered recently that the Japanese kabocha, or pumpkin, is actually from the Americas. It was brought to Japan by the Portuguese, who called it Cambodia abóbora, rendered in Japanese as カンボジャ・アボボラ, and subsequently shortened to カボチャ. It is called the Japanese pumpkin in Australia and New Zealand, but quite frequently called kabocha squash in North America.

About the same time, I had a student ask me how to say shiohigari in English. I had no idea.

When I looked it up, I found out that it was 潮干狩り, which, literally, translates as: hunting when the tide dries.

Or, more specifically, clamming.

Anyone else have some interesting learning experiences lately?

I vaguely recall someone telling me it came from Cambodia, hence the name, and it uses the kanji 南瓜 because Cambodia is south of china. I guess the portuguese took it to Japan from Cambodia..?

Incidentally I was invited to do 潮干狩り this weekend on 宮島

Actually the カボチャ does come from America,as well as many other pumpkins, which were 'discovered' by Portuguese and Spaniards during the fifteenth century and then, taken to other countries. Interestingly, in Tokyo supermarkets it is frequent to find カボチャ from Mexico (as usual, cheaper than the domestic crop) but in Mexico we rarely eat it. As far as I can recall, I ate it for the first time here in Japan and in Mexico I only saw it a couple of times as a Halloween decoration.

Today, I learned... well, I guess nothing specific but a couple of new kanjis that appeared in my way. 跳ぶ which is read とぶ just like 飛ぶ but means to hop rather than to jump. 賜る which is read たまわる and kind of a tricky 敬語 verb, as it can mean either いただく or くださる depending on the context.

Vocab "Today I Learned" is here: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=6922&page=2

This can be used for other things you learned though.

I learned the word 曖昧模糊 from a book yesterday. I like to use words I've just learned straight away, and I used it today to someone on IM but they couldn't read it.

曖昧 isn't too rare of a word, although I can't recall ever seeing 曖昧模糊...
I agree with using words that you just learns -- it seems to jumpstart their transition into active memory.

I haven't learned anything today, because I've put Japanese on the backburner for a while, as I finish up school (:O!)

Actually, for this thread I was thinking more of some interesting factoid about Japan/Japanese culture that we might have learned today. Not so much vocabulary.

For example, I learned today that the Japanese mikan is a Satsuma mandarin. There are several varieties of mandarin, but the Japanese mandarin was brought from China to Japan way back. It was no longer cultivated in China, and later reintroduced to China from Japan after several hundred years.

It was brought to the States in the 1800's, and was called the Satsuma, Satsuma mandarin or Satsuma orange. The panhandle of Florida touted itself as the "Satsuma Capitol of the World." Several cities actually renamed themselves 'Satsuma' in honor of this fruit, and so there is now a Satsuma, Florida; Satsuma, Texas; Satsuma, Alabama; and Satsuma, Luisiana.

All despite the fact that the fruit introduced to the States was not from the Satsuma region!

On a related note, many people I know translate mikan as tangerine. The tangerine, however, is the ponkan fruit.

I learned that in 1926 on the day of the emperor's death, a newspaper ran a special report stating that the next era was to be called 光文. However, seven hours later, the actual era name was announced as 昭和, causing the editor of the newspaper (which nowadays is the 毎日新聞, which I've collected several issues of) to announce his resignation.

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%89%E...B%E4%BB%B6

fakewookie Wrote:I learned that in 1926 on the day of the emperor's death, a newspaper ran a special report stating that the next era was to be called 光文. However, seven hours later, the actual era name was announced as 昭和, causing the editor of the newspaper (which nowadays is the 毎日新聞, which I've collected several issues of) to announce his resignation.

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%89%E...B%E4%BB%B6

I love it: it's referred to as the "Kobun Incident" in that article.

Makes it sound like an assassination attempt or a mass revolt or something.