相席（あいせき,） means “sharing a table with someone you don’t know (e.g. at a restaurant)” (Takoboto).
What other fun words have you all encountered that just don’t translate well to English or require a short explanation?
I’d like to make a sentence that’s very long in translation, and/or read a silly sentence like that.
I wandered in here from All (I’m a Los Angeles person who doesn’t speak Japanese) and I’m going to try to experience doing this just so I can use the word Takoboto. Is Takoboto a common thing in Japan? I think it’s a little unusual here, except at a long counter. English started as “three languages in a trenchcoat” and has survived by stealing ever since, so I wouldn’t be surprised if 20 years from now Takoboto was just accepted as another English word, the way we stole umami. (Yes we had “savory” but that already had too many connotations and connections that didn’t necessarily fit with the precise flavor of umami.)
To clarify, the word OP brought up is “aiseki”.
(Takoboto is a dictionary site.)
Oh! Thank you for stopping me making a complete fool of myself!
(In the outer world, behind my own face, that is. I’ve already done it here!)