Vocabulary of the Week： 基本的・きほんてき・kihonteki

Basically.

I hear this at least twice every time  I go to rugby practice, and as sad as it seems, for a couple of weeks I had no idea what it meant. Every time I heard it I obsessed over what it might mean, and made a mental memo to look it up when I got home, or to ask someone after practice, but I am an うっかりする kind of person (more on that word another day), and of course that never happened. (Until one day it did, and that's how I'm able to give you the definition of the word.)

 Kihonteki (基本的）means basic, as in "basic human rights" or "the fundamentals".　

There's something ironic in not knowing the word for basic.