Photo by Joao Tzanno on Unsplash Do you like proverbs? Proverbs is called ことわざ in Japanese. 今日は、動物のことわざを、５つ紹介します。 Today I’d like to introduce to you 5 animal-related proverbs: 1. 猿も木から落ちる Even monkeys fall from a tree さる: monkey き: tree おちる: to fall This expression can be used to cheer up a person when he made …
Today, let’s learn some idioms and expressions related to 2 colors – black and white. 今日は、黒と白の２つの色の慣用句や表現について 学びましょう。 Black is called 黒（くろ） in Japanese. 黒（くろ）い originally comes from the i-adjective 暗（くら）い meaning dark, therefore the word often has a negative connotation. 腹黒（はらぐろ）い 腹（はら） means belly so 腹黒い literally means black belly. It’s used to refer to …
今日（きょう）のトピック は、いろいろな色（いろ）に関（かん）する慣用句（かんようく）や 表現（ひょうげん）を みてみましょう。 We are going to explore more idioms and expressions related to different colors! Today, however, we will focus on just 2 colors that are very important to Japanese people: blue and red. Let’s start with the color blue or 青 in Japanese 青 is one of the 4 basic colors that have been …
今日（きょう）のトピック は、水（みず）に関（かん）する慣用句（かんようく）です。 Today’s topic is idioms related to “water”. Before diving into our idioms, let us first talk about the Japanese tradition of drinking alcohol. Traditionally, Japanese people have been drinking alcohol/sake as a tool for communication among them after work in relaxed settings. This special culture is often called 飲みニケーション (nominication) – a combination …
Today’s topic is idioms related to the word “color”. 今日のトピック は、色（いろ）の慣用句（かんようく）です。 Color in Japanese is 色（いろ）. However, did you know that the word 色 means not only colors but can also refer to a romantic relationship between men and women? It can even carry a sexial connotation. For example: 色っぽい It means “sexy”. ぽい here …
Today’s topic is idioms related to the word “mouth”. 今日（きょう）のトピック は、口（くち）に関（かん）する慣用句（かんようく）です。 口がかたい It literally means “one’s mouth is hard/firm” but it is used to mean that “one can keep secrets; trustworthy”. 口が軽（かる）い かるい means “light” so if someone has a light mouth, it means that he has a loose tongue and can’t keep secrets! Even though …