Normally, I like seeing words in katakana, because normally they’re nice friendly English words.

Then, I hit a word spelled in katakana, like, oh, I dunno, “ホーム”, and this of course makes perfect sense. Ho-mu. Home.

And then I hit a sentence in my JLPT study manual like “ホームにならんでいます” which means “Standing in line at… home(?)”

I’m standing in line at home? What does that mean?

And after trying to figure out if there’s a different meaning for ならんで that would possibly make this make sense, I find out that the Japanese use ホーム for the English word “home”, yes, as in “home plate” or “home base” but they ALSO use it for “train platform”

Standing in line at the train platform. That makes sense.

“ホーム” instead of “乗り場”, that doesn’t bloody make sense. I just have to remember it and it will all be good in the end. Right?