Get_Off_My_WLAN

The author mentioned that keeping those railways around, instead of just getting rid of them for cars like the US did, allowed the cities in Japan to become that dense in the first place. It’s not because Tokyo and Osaka were always this populated. Even then,

The urban area of Tokyo, the densest Japanese city, has a weighted population density less than that of many European cities, including Paris, Madrid, or Athens.

Of course there are plenty of people who live in Tokyo proper, like I do, but most people I know actually live on its periphery, where the density isn’t as crazy.

That’s why we made horse girls that can chase him down before he gets away

Some of those you listed are closely related for a reason though, or are actually the same, in a sense. So I’m not sure they’re different enough to really be considered false friends? Especially if you look at older shared uses and meanings. Even within Mandarin, you have the same type of differences. 計算機 for calculator or computer, but computers are calculators (compute and calculate are synonymous to begin with).

A Mandarin professor explained in my class that 先生 was used in the past to address teachers. Both Korean and Japanese still use 先生 to address teachers, but they can also use it to address other people in a highly respectful manner too (i.e., like ‘mister’). But mainland Chinese eventually started using 老師 for some reason. Technically, 先生 doesn’t literally mean teacher anyway. The job title in Japan is 教師.

Even if they’re a bit different, most of them are easy to connect the dots. Like

新聞: news -> newspaper 約束: promises bind and constrain us 文句: technically does mean ‘phrase’, but its use as ‘grumbling’ (i.e., complaint) seems to have become more common 白鳥: swans are white birds, yeah? 氷箱: a box of ice is just a primitive method of refrigeration, no? 邪魔: this one comes from Buddhism, so the meaning is actually originally the same, but instead of just wicked spirits that hinder you from reaching enlightenment, it came to mean any hindrance in general 猪: pigs are domesticated subspecies of boars 走: ‘run’ is the original meaning of this character 首: still used for head in some contexts 床: still means bed in some contexts

🦉EYPΩ