With a lot, lot of words there's actually 2 forms in common use: usually the "everyday" one is English, the "formal/archaic" is either originally Japanese or Chinese. Make no mistake, these Chinese ones ARE used and WILL come up when reading in Japanese! It might be in the newspaper, it might be in the title of an anime, etc. These are NOT "katakana words that have kanji forms", I mean actual synonyms that are more than just one-time borrowings.

From what I understand, Chinese/kanji words sound "tough, manly, harsh" while English words sound more "cool, fun, mysterious". So an action manga will use tons of kanji in the attack names but an advertisement will use a ton of English, for example. But ignoring that, here's the list! I don't know so many of them so please add in any you know!

電脳　コンピュータ　コンピュ　コン　computer (kanji = used a lot in scifi: ex. 電脳コイル "Dennou Coil", anime name)
自動車　車　カー　car (カー is hardly ever used)
乗り合い自動車　乗合自動車　バス　bus
動力　力　エネルギー　エネ　energy
( Read more... )

(x-posted to the japanese comm on LJ)

there's one thing i've noticed. with certain grammar points either it comes up completely randomly in one sentence out of 10 anime episodes or there's "that one character" who always says it, like "albeit" versus "but/however" in english. now there's points even rarer than that, and what i don't understand is WHERE these points are being used in the japanese language to make them be this or that level on the JLPT.

for example, ものの is something i've only ever seen like once out of like 80 anime eps so far; and i've been watching everything from detective shows to slice-of-life to sports anime. yet ものの is JLPT level 2, and level 1 is the hardest test level. obviously there's some kind of genre where ものの is in constant use that the JLPT is expecting you to be reading/watching, right? what is that genre?!

EDIT: I've now met a Hokkaido person who uses ものの a ton, I wonder if it's dialectal how much you use it?

といい　といい, ごとき, 極めて, 始末, ってば have shown up at least 5-10 times. ぶり, それまでだ, すら at least 20 times. and yet these are supposedly N1 level! だって shows up like every two pages in half the manga you'll read, but it's N2 level and not N4!

have you guys noticed anything with this? where the heck am i supposed to go if i want to drill ものの into my brain for example? and there's plenty of N1 ones i feel like i haven't seen even once (though i might have just not noticed them when i did see them), ex: だの～だの, かれ～かれ, も顧みず, のなんのって, とみるや, のみか (though i've seen the plain のみ).