宗教. Language related to religions.
Questions tagged [religion]
23 questions
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Why does 皮肉 mean "irony"?
I gather that 皮肉 can literally mean "skin-meat." I also see that one definition for 皮 is "mask (hiding one's true nature); seeming." So perhaps 皮肉 can be understood as "hiding the real meat," which can be related to irony. What is the real answer?
yadokari
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How to invoke God/spirits in Japanese
No, this is not about any Buddhist chant or mantra that can be used to call forth Japanese gods or heavenly spirits, but rather about any specialized words or interjections that attract attention of the God/spirits that we want to communicate with.…
Lukman
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Heaven in Japanese
I have found that there are a number of words in Japanese that correspond to "heaven" in English. By heaven I mean the concept of a paradisiacal afterlife. The two most frequent in my limited and flawed personal experience are
天国 (as well as just…
yadokari
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How do you replace 「お悔やみ」 in condolences to a Japanese Christian?
In Yosh's answer to the question What are the ways to express someone's condolences?, this link states that Buddhist terms should not be used in expressing condolences to a Christian in…
seijitsu
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How was Japanese animism referred to before 国家神道 (State Shinto) was created?
Pre-Meiji:
What was Japanese animism popularly called before 国家神道 (State Shinto) was created in the early Meiji period (19th century)? Prior to that, was the word 「神道」 a common term among the populace, or was it part of a jargon that the average…
seijitsu
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Can a cathedral be referred to as a 寺?
I was listening to a song Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame in Japanese (the intro, The Bells of Notre Dame or ノートルダムの鐘), and I noticed that they referred to the cathedral as a 「てら」. I thought that was odd since as far as I know お寺 is used to refer…
silvermaple
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What's the difference between the に祈る【いのる】 and を祈る【いのる】 forms?
What's the difference between the に祈る and を祈る forms?
Like what's the difference between (1.) and (2.):
うまく行くのに祈ってくださいね。
うまく行くのを祈ってくださいね。
EDIT: What's the difference between the ように祈る and のを祈る forms?
Like if what I want to say is "I pray that he…
Pacerier
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火の車 Where did it come from
My sensei in class told us about 火の車 that means someone in a difficult financial strait . I was wondering what does it have to do with fire 火 and a car 車?
Ahmed Abdel Moneim Elket
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What do you call the small wooden plates that people write wishes in and hang on some stand in a shrine?
What do you call the small pieces of wood(?) where people write wishes on and hang them on some stand close to where you tie folded o-mikuji (おみくじ)? Or are they also called おみくじ?
Related question:
Also, in some temples, there's also this little…
Jerahmeel
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How suitable is "僧侶" for "priest"?
Page 79 of Fluent Forever's "Awesome Word List" for Japanese gives 僧侶 as the Japanese word for "priest", listed just after "教会" for "church". How suitable is it for "priest", if at all?
Doing a google image search for "僧侶" mainly gave Buddhists…
Andrew Grimm
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How accurately can 使い be translated as "angel"?
On jisho.org, 使い is translated with words such as "errand", and the same holds true on translate.google.com. Neither site is offering "angel" as a suggestion. Yet in Matthew 1:20, the phrase:
・・・主の使いが夢に現れて言った。
is found in English as:
. . . an…
Panzercrisis
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Which god does 神様 actually refer to?
I have the impression that if a Japanese uses the term 神様, they refer to an omnipotent deity very similar to the Abrahamic god. According to my (very limited) knowledge of Shinto and Buddhism, there is no such equivalent in these beliefs, correct me…
kuy
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Buddhist facilities
I am working on Japanese texts describing Buddhist temples in South-East Asia and there is quite a number of words I can't really translate in English. Here is a list with my tentative translations (I wrote a ~ next to the words whose meaning I am…
Julien Bourdon
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Why is Eden written as エデン in Japanese?
I just started watching "Eden of the East" and noticed that the Katakana used for Eden was エデン. I'm wondering why isn't it instead イデン which would be pronounced the same way as in English (which I was assuming was the source).
My only guess is that…
user11089
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What's that accordion style book you can get at shrines called?
When visiting shrines or temples, one can get an accordion style book and for a couple hundred yen have a shrine's seal stamped inside. What is this book called?
paullb
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