This time I will dare to post and off-topic, small post, because I want to share with everyone (sic!) how not to search for words in an online dictionary.
I subscribed for a 'Japanese word of the day' and everyday I'm getting one new (or not) word, with sentence example. Usually I double check them in other dictionaries, like jisho.org, because as every
decent language-learner knows, some words might have a totally different usage than the same word in our mother tongue. Anyway, the word I got today made me confused for a minute.
The word was: ピンきり.
So, I'm reading that the English meaning is: various. Ok. I'm checking it in jisho. No results. Changing it all to hiragana - no results. Katakana - no results. No way, does this word even exist??? I almost permanently deleted the mail with this word from my inbox,but... Let's ask Mr. Google, I'm thinking. Got it!
And now I would like to recommend this website: http://zokugo-dict.com , which contains colloquial words in Japanese. Same with this one.
The word is a shortcut of: ピンからきりまで. ピン means the first card of カルタ and きり is the last, ending card. So it means, from the beginning to the end, from the smallest to the biggest, from the worst to the best. That is: various.
Here are the examples with this word:
http://zokugo-dict.com/27hi/pinkiri.htm
Cheers!
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