10 interesting Japanese words and expressions

From time to time on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog I take a look at interesting words and expressions from languages around the world, and this week it's the turn of Japanese...

"Hmm, who can I try out my new sword on?"

1) Swordsplay

An extremely worrying Japanese word is the word 'uji-giri' which means 'to try out a new sword on a random passer-by'!

Thankfully, 'uji-guri' isn't in common usage nowadays and dates back to ancient times, but I can only feel grateful that I didn't live in the ancient days of the samurai when such words were necessary!

2) My cheeks are falling off!

In English if we wanted to describe food as delicious we might perhaps say, 'That was a meal fit for a king!' In Japanese an expression with a similar meaning is the phrase, 'My cheeks are falling off!'  which is an amusing way to describe a delicious meal.

I don't have a photo of a bald man, so a bald eagle will have to
do instead.  Incidentally, does anyone know why they are called
'bald eagles' when they're clearly not bald?

3) Bar code men

In English if a bald man combs his side hair over the top of his head to disguise* the fact that he's bald, we would refer to that as a comb-over.

In Japan, however, they use the amusing description 'bar code men' to describe bald men who comb their hair over. This is due to the way the strands of hair appear like a bar code on the top of follicly challenged bald men's heads

*Rather badly.

4) The lights are on but no-one's home ... or are they?

'Irusu' is a Japanese word which doesn't really have a direct English equivalent, but it means 'to pretend to be out when someone knocks at your door and you don't want to speak to them'. I sometimes do this at Christmas when carol singers knock on the door and I don't want to give them money, and also at Halloween when 'trick or treaters' knock on the door and I don't want to give them sweets. Now that I think about it, I'm quite a grumpy old Scrooge!

Sunshine through the trees.

5) No English equivalent (part 1)

Have you ever experienced something cool and thought to yourself, 'This is so cool that it deserves its own word to describe it!'

One such cool thing which deserves it's own word is the sight of sunshine filtering though trees, and the Japanese language happily obliges because the Japanese word 'komorebi' means exactly that ... sunshine filtering through the trees.

6) Cat poop

The Japanese expression 'neko baba' refers to stealing, and seems normal enough until you discover that it literally translates as 'cat poop'. Presumably the Japanese don't take kindly to stealing and it would be cool to see the English language introduce a similar 'cat poop' related word to refer to thieves in a deservedly insulting manner.

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of a bad haircut so I had
to make do with this photo instead, which I'm sure everyone
will agree is an extremely excellent haircut!

7) Horrible haircuts

I spent two months in Japan several years ago and while I was there I noticed that Japanese people, both men and women, take great pride in their hairstyles. It therefore wasn't a great surprise to learn that there are quite a few Japanese words relating to haircuts.

One such phrase which I like is 'age otori' which means 'to look worse after a haircut than you did before'. Presumably 'age otori' isn't something you would say to someone's face!

8) More honest than you can stomach

In Japanese if someone 'speaks with their belly cut open', don't panic! It's not an expression which is meant to be taken literally! In Japanese, 'to speak with your belly cut open' just means to speak honestly.

9) No English equivalent (part 2)

One of my favourite scenes from Wayne's World is when he has the subtitled conversation in Japanese with some English one word answers translating as extremely long-winded in Japanese, and vice versa. In actual fact there's an element of truth to that scene, as there are a few Japanese words which don't translate directly as a simple English word, and the English description of some Japanese words can be very long winded indeed. For example, the short Japanese phrase 'arigata meiwaku' translates as:

"When someone does you an alleged favour which you didn't want them to do, and you tried to stop them from doing this alleged favour, but they ignored your resistance and did it anyway, causing you a lot of trouble in the process, and to make matters worse, due to social convention you are now expected to express gratitude for this unwanted 'favour' which caused you unnecessary problems!"

10) Carrying chopsticks

Chopsticks

A Geordie* expression which I like is the saying 'They've had a hard paper round' which basically means someone has had a hard life, or if you were being cruel it could be used to mean someone looks older than they actually are due to a lifetime of hard work.

* A 'Geordie' is someone who comes from Newcastle.

I can't think of an equivalent English expression to describe someone who has had an easy life, but in Japan if someone has had an easy life and never had to work hard you would say, 'They've never had to lift anything heavier than chopsticks!'

I like the way you can easily work out what this expression means, even if you've never heard it before.

. . . . . . . .

That was 10 of my favourite Japanese words and expressions.  However, the Japanese language is a totally cool language, so I'll probably feature another round-up of more cool Japanese words at some point in the future.

You can find more interesting words and expressions from around the world in the links below:
Languages around the world (Korean)
10 interesting Chinese words and expressions