While slogging through my flashcard deck from the Basic Kanji Book the other day I found myself wondering why in god’s name I had to learn 県庁 (kenchou) prefectural office, 区役所 (kuyakusho), and 村役場 (murayakuba) village office. When on earth would I need them? I’m not in Japan. We don’t have those offices in the United States. They’re confusing in that they’re all similar, but use different kanji. They were taking up precious space in my already crowded brain that could be used for much more important words like　進化 to evolve, or 交換 to exchange. You know, important words to use for games.

Nevertheless I learned the strange office words. I was content amassing (what I deemed) useless knowledge.

Yesterday morning over breakfast I flipped through the April volume of ファミ通DS+Wii and read the Animal Crossing comic. What did I see plastered everywhere? 村役場 of course. Just to reinforce that I shouldn’t gripe about learning words that I consider strange or useless. They’re in the book for a reason, not merely to annoy me.

And all the strange super-long polite words from class that also annoyed the hell out of me with their stuffy superiority? All over Pokémon + Nobunaga’s Ambition. So stop griping about when you’re going to use all the stuff you’re learning. You may not speak it, but you’ll hear it or see it. And you’ll know what it means. And that’s worth all the flashcard reps.