It’s time for another installment of Wacky Japanese You Already Know, featuring Japanese words that happen to have the same pronunciation (e.g. are homophones) with English words, like hen, a word for a female chicken which happens to mean “strange” in nihongo, or the Japanese word for “good,” which is ii, pronounced just like the English letter “E.” In American English, “honky” is an impolite word for a white person, but in Japanese honki means “serious,” e.g. honki desu ka? “Are you serious?” The word “kinky” might make you think of something creative in the bedroom, but in Japan the region of the country containing Kyoto, Osaka and Nara is designated as the Kinki Region — I wonder if girls are kinkier there? If you’ve ever seen one of the Rambo movies, you know how to say “violent” or “violence” in Japanese, since that’s what the title means — rambou. You might hate having a friend who is “emo” but in Japanese this would is…a potato (imo). Other fun accidental matching words include psycho (saikou, pronounced sai-KOH), which means “the best thing ever” in Japanese, and “bimbo” (binbou), which happens to mean “poor” (i.e. someone lacking money). Now you know some more Japanese words. Wasn’t that easy?
“Bimbo” means someone who has no money in Japanese.
