The problem with modern Japanese is that your average Japanese grandmother doesn't know or understand most of the newer words.
This page is an attempt to help those who are learning Japanese and who want to communicate with older Japanese people (50-60+) but who have been left behind by their text books - which tend to use english-based loan-words indiscriminately.
My situation is one of necessity - I have a grandmother-in-law who is Japanese and who doesn't speak any English. She speaks kind of funny - as old people do - and is therefore not easy to communicate with - especially for a beginner like me. It certainly doesn't help that the vocabulary I am given, is not understood by the older generation.
One might think a dictionary would solve this easily. It doesn't. I find it's rather difficult to truly understand whether another word in the dictionary is really an appropriate equivalent. Hence this page: a resource of Japanese Modern to Grandmother Words vocabulary. Certified by checking with my Grandmother-in-law
Note: these words are chosen specifically because the modern word was not understood by my Grandmother-in-law. That is, if you use the modern word (and not my equivalent), there is a significant chance an older person won't understand you.
スニーカー
うんどうぐつ ｢運動靴」
はながみ「鼻紙」
いま「居間」
みぶり「身振り」
