No. 201 in Japanese
外
"Outside" or "exterior."
In a sentence
窓の外に鳥がいます。
There is a bird outside the window.
In this sentence, 外 (soto) is used to specify the location of something being outside of a specific place, in this case, the window.
彼は外の世界を知りたがっている。
He wants to know about the outside world.
Here, 外 (soto) is used metaphorically to describe the 'outside world,' distinguishing it from an implied internal world or local environment.
この箱の外に注意書きがあります。
There is a caution note on the outside of this box.
In this example, 外 (soto) denotes the external surface of an object, specifically the box in question.
Hear it in real podcasts
The recording above is a synthetic voice. Hear how people say “外” in actual Japanese podcasts.
Find “外” in podcastsLearn it from shows you like
LangTurbo plays Japanese podcasts with a transcript and the English under every line. Tap a word like this one and it tells you what it means right there. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Learning English?
LangTurbo plays real English podcasts with every line translated into 日本語, and tells you what any word means in that sentence. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Japanese books and courses on Amazon (an affiliate link: a purchase through it supports this site).