noun:

• human document; personal documentary; documentary on someone's life

expression:

• knock on wood; touch wood; heaven forbid; God help me; absit omen! - spoken to ward off misfortune

noun:

• ceremonial bonfire (seeing off the spirits on the final night of O-Bon)

noun:

• comments on current events; public sentiments of the day; current view; contemporary opinion

noun:

• fifty-three stations on the Tōkaidō (Edo-Kyoto highway in Edo-period Japan)

noun:

• welcoming fire for returning spirits (on the first night of the Bon festival) Antonym: 送り火 ➜ お盆

noun / ~する noun:

• accretion of snow (on power lines, tree branches, etc.); snow sticking to surfaces

noun / ~する noun:

• firmly bear in mind; have something engraved on one's mind (heart) - four character idiom

noun:

• emotional effect on pet owners from losing their pet - From English "pet loss"

noun:

• Engel's coefficient; proportion of one's income spent on food - Economics term

adverb / ~と adverb / ~する noun:

• flickering; flashing on and off; twinkling; glittering - onomatopoeia
• glaringly (bright); painfully (bright) - onomatopoeia
• prickling (pain) - onomatopoeia

noun:

• type of ribbon fastening used on wedding gifts, get-well gifts, etc.

noun:

• nursing care level (between 1 and 5 based on assessment of care requirements) ➜ 要介護

noun:

• medical checkup that focuses primarily on problems that worsen with age

noun:

• neo-Confucianism (based on the teaching of the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi) - obscure term ➜ 宋学

noun:

• school route; street for students going to and from school (esp. on foot)

expression:

• nothing comes of nothing; don't expect things to happen on their own - proverb

noun:

• water left in buckets on the roadside during the summer for travellers

noun:

• emergency volcanic alert (e.g. an eruption warning); urgent information on volcanic activity

noun / ~する noun:

• involving the audience (by talking to them, bringing them on stage, etc.)

noun / ~する noun:

• viewing optimistically; thinking optimistically; taking an optimistic view; looking on the bright side

noun:

• Jataka; collection of texts on the early lives of Buddha (4th century BCE) - Buddhism term - From Sanskrit

noun:

• directional button; button with arrow(s) (on keypad, game controller, etc.)

particle:

• indicates emphasis, agreement, request for confirmation, etc.; is it so - at sentence end

interjection:

• hey; come on; listen

auxiliary adjective:

• not - verb-negating suffix; may indicate question or invitation with rising intonation - colloquialism ➜ ない

adverb:

• sound of heavy breathing - onomatopoeia

noun / ~する noun:

• blowing on something (e.g. to cool it down)