It’s time for another installment of Wacky Japanese You Already Know, featuring Japanese words that happen to be homophones with English, like hen, a word for a female chicken which happens to mean “strange” in Japanese, or the letter “E,” which is an all-purpose word for “good” or “okay” here (Romanized ii, pronounced like the letter). 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 — there’s a popular “multi-talent” duo from the region called the Kinki Kids. If you’ve ever seen one of the Rambo movies, you know how to say “violent” or “violence” in Japanese, since that’s what it means — rambou. When a relationship has bumps, the word for this is giku-shaku, which sounds so much like “geek shack” that you can probably just use that word. “Emo” describes a kind of music and related counter-culture style of living, but in Japanese it’s…a potato (imo). And if you’ve ever wondered how you say “voice actor” in Japanese, it’s really easy: “say you” (seiyu). Now you know some more Japanese words. Wasn’t that easy?
