I was once wondering around a neighborhood in Tokyo and passed by a group of friends who were saying goodbye to each other. I heard one of them say "お疲れヤマ". I stopped, wondering if it was some strange kind of slang or regional variation, but she then started laughing and said "お疲れマウンテン".
代々墓 (だいだいばか): An ancestral grave
One of my Japanese teachers pointed out that it's often used in sentences like OO家族代々墓, which makes it sound like " the OO family are massive idiots.
I also thought 五十五 sounded funny when I first learned it, because I thought it was supposed to be pronounced like "go Jew go".
It probably doesn't make any sense noq considering how quickly internet language changes, but I learned the word for ambulance (救急車 きゅうきゅうしゃ) around 15 years ago, and at the time QQ meant crying, and was used to call people emotional crybabies. It reminded of the term "wahmbulance" which people would use when someone is being whiny.
I personally had one or two issues with the video you used. I'm not sure they were being literal when they said は means "as for". は doesn't have any meaning, it has a function. Translating it this way can help people understand how は works within the sentence, but I've also seen it confuse people too. I once saw a post from someone who said 私は難しい incorrectly thinking it meant "It's difficult for me."
Some of the things you mentioned also weren't accurate.
a) Generally speaking, cats are liked [猫が好きだ] b) As for me, cats are liked (-> I like cats) [私は猫が好きだ]
Sentence B is correct. Sentence A however is just sentence B with the subject/topic omitted. You'll have to infer the it from the context, but it will be "I" in most cases. I don't think there will be any context in which it will be understood as cats being generally liked by everyone.
a) Generally speaking, as for cats, everything about cats is liked. [猫は好きだ] c) As for me, as for cats, everything about cats is liked. (-> I like cats) [私は猫は好きだ]
There are a few issues here that are a little misleading. は好き can be used like this, but in my experience of looking at sentence from native Japanese speakers, it's mostly only used in the following three ways:
Number 2 and 3 can be replaced with が, but は is preferred for number 1.
私は猫が好き also doesn't quite mean you like everything about cats. It's the same as saying you like cats in English, you're making a general statement without specificially identifying what you like about them. I like everything about cats is closer to 猫の事が好きです or 猫の全てが好きです.
I'm no expert on this, but in addition to the other factors people mentioned, I would say that people in Japan seem to pay a lot more attention to high school sports. The Koshien Stadium and the high school baseball tournaments name after it are very famous. I'm not even interested in sports, but I know about them and often notice friends talking about them online. I know absolutely nothing about the college baseball tournaments or where they're held.
As I mentioned in my other comment, I assumed they were the same, but several sites said they were different things. "American coffee" is a weak brewed coffee, and Caffe Americano (アメリカノ) is a diluted espresso, which is actually stronger than most brewed coffees, at least in terms of caffeine content. Japan has アメリカノ too, and in my experience it's much more common.
I thought maybe it was supposed to say Americano, but it's not the same. There's an explanation here. It's made from light roasted beans, and they say it most likely got it's name from Americans in post-war Japan brewing coffee with lots of water or diluting it further before drinking.
I'm not American, but the name sounds a little judgemental to me.
Why were they so sure the penguins weren't just roomates?
There are services like Lang-8 and HiNative where you can get your writing checked or ask questions, so I'd suggest using those instead.
It depends what you mean by learning Japanese. If it means gaining some conversational ability, then I believe most people would rate it well. If it means becoming profecient or near native level, then I doubt Duolingo could help you do that on it's own.
Also greater visibility of communities on other instances, as they won't be recognized until someone manually searches for them by their address. Right now you have to rely on the Lemmy Community browser or !newcommunities @lemmy.world.
上下左右 (じょうげさゆう). Means "top, bottom, left, and right". It isn't used very often, but it's useful for talking about web design, which is how I first encountered it.
拘り (こだわり) when used for food. It's easier to translate it as a verb (拘る), which means to be particular about something. 玉子に拘っている can very simply be translated as "We're particular about eggs", but 拘りの玉子サンド is much more difficult to translate. In this usage, it means that lots of care, thought, time, and/or work has been put into getting it right. There are a few translations you could use, but I don't think any one of them had quite the same nuance. Jim Breen dictionaries translate them as "speciality", but I don't think it captures the original meaning at all. You could translate it as "artisanal" or "finest", but that gives it more of a high-end or luxury sounding nuance. "Meticulously crafted" is also close, but that sounds like something very complex or elaborate, whereas the original can be used for simple things.