世間体

This word means "appearances."

From the dictionary on my Macbook:
for the sake of appearances 世間体のために
that would look bad/be bad for my reputation それでは世間体が悪い

But these kanji readings seem kind of crazy to me. せけんてい
せmakes sense since it's the same as 世界
but けん is pretty different from かん like 間 is more commonly pronounced
and てい is different from たい like 体 is usually pronounced.

It's almost like the vowels for the whole word shifted to match the first one.

Anyways, it's hard for me to remember, but then I realized that if you get a little philosophical it's not so hard, based on the meanings of the kanji.

Think of 世 as world, 間 as a length of time, and 体 as body/phyisical.

So appearances are only valid in this life, the brief time your physical form (appearance) is on this planet.

あの世ではどうなるかな。

#makingshitup

Anyways, I hope that taking the time to write this post will help me remember the word.

I've been trying to think of what I can do to make this a little more functional for other people, since it's called How to not suck at Japanese, but really, as I think I have said, the key is just to take the time. Me writing whatever I write in here is meant to show that. Of course, I don't update all that often, but I'm working on it :X I HAVE been studying kanji and vocab in Anki. Semi holding off on grammar until I get the N3 books I ordered (textbook junkiiiiiie).