As the 2020 Summer Olympics were originally scheduled to take place in Japan next week, that's therefore as good an excuse as any to feature anopther round-up of some of my favourite Japanese words and expressions.
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| "Bah! I'm too early! He's a not yet dead person." |
1) Not yet...
One Japenese word which I find amusing is the word for 'widow'. The kanji symbols for widow literally translate as 'not yet dead person'.
I suppose that technically it's true, but I still can't help thinking it's an unusual way to describe a widow!
2) Helpful Feline
If an English speaker is really busy we might say, 'I'm rushed off my feet,' or 'I'm busy as a bee'.
However, in Japan if someone was really busy they would say, "I'm so busy I'd be willing to borrow a cat's paw for help."
Based on all the cat's I've ever known I can't imagine the cat's paw would be much help! Most cats I've met generally just prefer lying around chilling, rather than helping busy Japanese people.
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| "I ain't climbing Mt Fuji twice, you crazy fool!" |
3) Crazy Fool
Here's a Japanese saying that hikers and climbers might like...
"If you never climb Mt. Fuji, you’re a fool.
If you climb it more than once, you’re a crazy fool."
When I visited Japan I didn't climb Mount Fuji, so I guess I'm a fool, but at least I'm not a crazy fool!
4) Empty hand
In Japanese, kare means empty and te means hand, so karate literally translates as 'empty hand'. It's a cool way of saying karate is a fighting discipline without weapons, i.e. your hand is empty. In English we would more commonly say unarmed combat.
5) Empty orchestra
The literal translation of karaoke follows a similar theme to karate, as karaoke literally means 'empty orchestra'. Kara means empty and oke follows the Japanese tradition of shortening imported words, so oke is a shortened form of orchestra.
So Japanese imported the word orchestra to create their word for karaoke, and then English imported the word karaoke back again!
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| "Would you like to borrow my paw?" |
6) Ninja
A cool Japanese word which I like for its meaning as well as the word itself is ninja, because the literal translation of ninja is 'sneaky person' or 'spy person'.
And that's exactly what ninjas are! Sneaky!
7) Chicken skin
Another favourite Japanese word of mine is torihada, which literally translates as 'chicken skin'. As you might be able to guess, torihada is the Japanese word for goosebumps, and when you think about it, chicken skin is a very visually accurate way to describe goosebumps.
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| "I will disturb you in your home." |
8) I will disturb you in your home
A polite greeting to say when you enter someone's home in Japan is 'ojamashimasu'.
This literally means 'I will disturb you', but it's not a threat! It's actually just a way of showing respect for the person you are visiting and for their home.
9) Helpless Carp
In Japan they have a rather morbid expression to describe feeling helpless. If you feel helpless you might say, 'I'm like a carp on a cutting board."
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| Husband Person Doubtfire |
10) Mrs Husband Person
Finally, for this last example, it's actually the kanji symbols I find interesting, rather than the actual word itself.
The Japanese symbol for husband is 夫.
The Japanese word for person is 人.
However, if you put them together (夫人) you get Mrs! So the kanji for Mrs is husband person!
Does that mean in Japan the movie Mrs Doubtfire would be known as Husband Person Doubtfire?
You can find more cool Japanese words and expressions in the blog posts below:
10 interesting Japanese words and expressions
Modern Japanese words
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