Elements of Japanese that made you laugh/smile

Japanese
#1

Warning: this thread may contain mnemonics which may be impossible to unseen.

I didn’t see similar topic so here we are:

do you have any funny experience with Japanese language itself? Something that you find hilarious because of your life experience or anything like that?

I will start with myself:

There is a Kanji that never fails to make me smile when I see it. I am not even sure if it was be design or I am just weird:

渋

So what we have here? It is something related to water. It makes you stop. And there is something looking like cartoonish representation of irritation or even certain body part we don’t like to show in public…

One of the meaning of that Kanji is: to have diarrhoea :joy:

It makes me laugh because I know I would joke it means that without knowing the meaning, and I would be accidentally right.

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#2

The fact that “booger” (鼻糞 / はなくそ) is made up of the kanji for “nose” and “shit” :joy:

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#3

Two recent phrases made me laugh. The first 爪に火を灯す means to be penny pinching, but the literal meaning is about lighting one’s fingernail in order to not have to use a candle. The second ガンジーが助走つけて殴るレベル describes a circumstance in which even gandhi would punch someone.

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#4

I saw this the other day and burst out laughing:

帰宅部
The first part, 帰宅, means “returning home,” and the second part, 部, is appended to name clubs. All in all, this word refers to those people who don’t take part of any clubs, so they are part of the “go home club” LOL

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#5

Sorry, I have to add another one: 手首 literally means “hand neck.” It refers to the wrist. It’s hilarious to think of my hand as a head for which my wrist is a neck.

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#6

I’m gonna keep drowning this thread because new ones keep coming to mind: 親子, “parent and child,” used to refer to a traditional dish of boiled chicken with scrambled eggs… who said the Japanese don’t have a sense of humor?

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#7

I’m already loving this thread

I love 猫舌, which means that you can’t handle spicy hot food. Not sure if cats really have sensitive tongues, but every time I see this it puts a smile on my face :wink:

EDIT: Thanks for the correction @nekoyama!

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#8

That fits your profile too well, my dude :joy:

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#9

自宅警備員(security guard for one’s own home) as a joking term for a shut-in.

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#10

Please go ahead! :rofl: The more the better. :hugs:

#11

That’s reminds me of popular joke about polish guy in Uk with poor english. He want to find chicken in the market but don’t know how to ask for that. So he takes an eggs and ask: Where is mother? xD

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#12

One more weird kanji:

精

One of the meanings is semen. I know hentai are weird (friends have told me so…) but how have they connected “rice” and “blue” with semen? Is there an animal that produce blue semen and it taste good with rice or something? :scream:

Btw: I am well aware there is semi logical explanation for that. More common meaning of that kanji are “ghost” or “vitality”. It is easy to connect both of them to blue: transparent ghost may look blueish, life energy is often seen as blue. And even easier with rice: as offering to ghost or source of vitality. Both of meaning can as well be easily extended to semen as passing on your spirit or vital force. But is is funny regardless xD

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#13

The word for a uvula is 喉ちんこ - literally throat penis.
That made me laugh when I first saw it.

Also, I’m sure we’ve all been perusing jisho and found an unbelievably funny word before. This is my all-time number one favourite:

Warning: you will probably laugh out loud so don't reveal until you have swallowed your coffee

%E7%84%A1%E9%A1%8C

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#14

Isn’t that the other “hot”, i.e. high temperature…

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#15

Oh dang! I have been misinterpreting this my whole life.
In my native tongue, spicy and hot are conveyed with the same word, so that made it confusing to me :sweat_smile:

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#16

Is your native tongue English? xD

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#17

Oh wait so it is the same in English, nvm, I wasn’t just confusing two languages :joy:
My native tongue is Dutch btw

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#18

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Screenshot 2021-01-18 at 12.16.32.png674×604 247 KB

It is always a bit confusing to me.

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#19

I will not ask what is your reading material :rofl:

(it is friendly joke. please don’t read into it :upside_down_face:)

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#20

飛び切り - means “best” (roughly speaking), with the literal meaning being “jumping and cutting”, I guess it was the best thing for samurais to do in their time :slight_smile:

素敵 - means “splendid/lovely” with kanji-by-kanji meaning being “weak enemy”, again, samurais loved their enemies weak :slight_smile:

恐竜 - “dinosaur”, of rather “scary dragon” if you go kanji-by-kanji :slight_smile:

there were a few more that I liked, but I can’t remember them now.

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