Words December 2025 Week 4

The slide rule (計算尺 - keisan-jaku) was used to perform math problems. (People stopped using slide rules in the 1970s when electronic calculators became popular.)

The buzz word of the year is “働いて働いて働いて働いて働いてまいります／女性首相— Hataraite, hataraite, hataraite, hataraite, hataraite mairimasu/joseishushō.”  (A buzz word is a word or phrase that has become very popular.)

He has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. (He will die soon.)

There is a shop in Inageya that buys and sells antiques. (His wife sold a few things for 40 thousand yen.)

We spoke in our home dialect. (The other people couldn’t understand them.)

The people near us were giggling. (A "giggle" is a light, silly laugh.)

A choir is usually a small group singers in a church or school. (A chorus is usually a large group on stage, but choir and chorus are interchangeable.)

To bribe someone means to give them money or gifts to get some benefit, usually illegally. (The FIFA Peace Prize was a bribe.)

To evacuate means to leave somewhere to avoid danger. (Many people were evacuated before the floods came.)

Beware of porch pirates during the holiday season. (Porch pirates are people who steal packages that were delivered to your house and left outside on the porch.)

"Pros and cons" originate from Latin, an abbreviation of "pro et contra" (In English, this means “for and against” or “good point and bad points.”).

The term "phishing" means to hook victims into revealing personal info using email as bait. (The "ph" spelling refers to early hackers called "phreaks" (phone freaks).)

A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. (A mule is a slang term for a person who transports illegal drugs across borders.)

He is a grumpy old man. (A grumpy person is pessimistic, easily annoyed, always complaining, etc.]

I staggered home after the party. (To stagger means to walk unsteadily, especially after drinking alcohol.]

My daughter bought a puppy recently. (You can also say that she got a new puppy.)

The puppy is not house broken yet. (When a pet stops urinating or defecating, peeing or pooing, in the house, it is house broken.)  

I spent 33,000 yen on special chopsticks. (They have special tips to make it easy to pick up small things.)

The doctor gave me a prescription for medicine for the Covid virus. (She caught the virus while attending a ceremony in Nagoya.)

Nobody could answer the question. (It was a trivia question that she learned the answer in this class.)

I have a good chemistry with her. (They get along very well.)

I got the results from my health exam. ("Bad" cholesterol refers to Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL), which is bad because it builds up as fatty deposits (plaque) in your arteries, and increases your risk for heart attack and stroke. In contrast, High-Density Lipoprotein (HDL) is the "good" cholesterol which removes cholesterol from your body.)

I was looking for a place to live near my new workplace. (His new office is more than a two-hour train ride from Ome.)

The room faces northeast. (He was hoping for a place that faces south.)

One nuance of “a new lease on life” is when you become more energetic and active than before. (He felt younger after eating healthy foods and exercising more.)

I looked up the floor plan for the building. (A floor plan is like a map showing you where the different locations are in a building.)