One thing I’ve noticed as I’ve been studying Japanese, is that the influence of Buddhism in Japanese culture is massive.
Of course, this filters down to the language as well, and any attempt at reading about Japanese history is going to throw you into a world of complex kanji and Buddhist icons, leaders, concepts and many other facets of Buddhism.
When trying to learn about the 御前座布団・おまえざぶとん, a type of cushion used specifically for Buddhist ceremonies, I came across the following article, let’s have a look at it in more detail.
First, we’ve got a lot of tricky vocabulary, here are some of the few from the beginning:
敷物 しきもの any type of cushion or mat
仏壇 ぶつだん Buddhist altar, traditionally in the house
お参り おまいり Visit to a religious site like temple, grave etc
中綿 なかわた padding
Some snippets
私たち日本人にとって、とても身近な敷物と言えば座布団です。
This pattern of X にとって、Yと言えば is a good way to introduce something like, “If you consider X, then the Y is”.
A few lines later, the phrase:
使い分けていらっしゃる方も多い
comes up, this is an example of polite Japanese by substituting いる for いらっしゃる。
Next we have the phrase 置いてある, which you can learn about in my video:
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