In Japanese class, students learned word origin. Mainly, there are three origins in Japanese words; Japan oriented, from Chinese and from other languages.
Confusingly, there are many words which mean very similar due to different origins in Japanese. For example, lunch can be indicated in three ways in Japanese, chushoku, hirugohan and lunch (ranchi). Since native Japanese people do not pay too much attention to these complicated circumstances, students enjoyed so much learning their origins through word games.
In fact, it sometimes causes problems that young or business people tend to use lend-words from foreign languages, like initiative or discussion. Though the same or similar words still exist in the Japanese language, some people like using those words and conversation becomes more complicated.
