You may know that if you want to to express “you’re welcome” in Japanese you can say “don’t touch my moustache” and the meaning will be communicated, since this phrase is similar to dou itashimashite. There are plenty of other English words that happen to match up closely with Japanese ones, from “cheek show” which sounds like chikusho! (“Damn!”) to “bimbo,” which happens to mean “poor” in Japanese (binbo). Some people will say “yada yada yada” to indicate unimportant details, but in Japanese the similar-sounding iya da means “no” or “I dislike that.” When you announce something with a lot of fanfare you might say “Tada!” but this word (tada) happens to mean “free” (as in beer) in Japanese. Often everyday names seem to sync up with Japanese words in odd ways. I have a friend name Debbie who everyone calls Deb, but this isn’t very flattering in Japanese as debu means “fat”; similarly, people named Jimmy might not want to use that name in Japan, as it happens to mean plain and boring (jimmi). You can sometimes combine names to make other words, like Ben, Joe (benjo) which means “toilet,” or Joe, Ken (joken) meaning “condition.” Finally, the name of Chewbacca from Star Wars sounds like someone who is crazy about kissing (chu baka), while his nickname of Chewie sounds like Japanese for “beware of…” (chuui), as seen in our popular Beware Perverts wacky kanji T-shirts. Now you know some (probably useless) Japanese!
You can speak Japanese using English words you already know!
