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The lack of examples makes me difficult to understand well the difference
between 恥知らず and 厚顔無恥. Both seem to mean "shameless".

For example, can I use both as follows? Are there any differences?

> 脱いだまま公園で散歩する人は **恥知らず** だ。  
>  脱いだまま公園で散歩する人は **厚顔無恥** だ。
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2016-12-19T05:20:25.603
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word-choice wago-and-kango yoji-jukugo
恥知らず【はじしらず】 versus 厚顔無恥【こうがんむち】
These two are basically same meaning,so either one is fine in this situation.
To be exact, for me, 厚顔無恥 sounds a bit stronger than 恥知らず, but Japanese don't
care the differences so much.
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2016-12-19T08:06:22.633
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「恥知{はじし}らず」 is an originally Japanese word (大和言葉{やまとことば}) as you could tell, I
hope, from its reading/pronunciation. ( _ **Please do not be fooled by the use
of kanji (恥 & 知). The kanji were just "assigned" to the word later on.
Japanese was only a spoken language before we encountered the Chinese and
started learning the kanji and created the kana.**_)

「厚顔無恥{こうがんむち}」 is, of course, a straight-up Sino-loanword.

Just like the million other Yamato-Sino word pairs, there is little to no
difference in the basic meaning.

The difference that does exist is that the Sino counterpart tends to sound
_**more formal, more academic, less intuitive**_ , etc. than the Yamato
counterpart, which is why Japanese kids generally learn the Yamato words
first.

Finally, the general differences between Yamato words and Sino-loanwords are
_**strikingly**_ similar, IMHO, to those between English-origin words and
"big" Latin loanwords used in English - begin vs. commence, worker vs.
employee, put out vs. extinguish, go down vs. descend, etc.
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2016-12-19T09:54:38.360
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answer