I find it fascinating that namae is actually not a loanword or language migration... these words were invented by totally different peoples who were not in contact.
And I, too, mentally translate とてもas a very valley girl like "totally!
Apparently it's the same for 鉛筆(enpitsu) for pencil. The word dates back to the 13th or 14th century and has no connection to the word English, pencil. Amazing coincidence!
Probably a common one: A long time ago an internet penpal and I used to send pictures of the state of Ohio to each other instead of sayingおはよう (over MSN Messenger if it helps to date it… 👴🏻)
these are called “false friends”! two words that look or sound similar but have completely different meanings.
in chinese 勉強 or “miǎn qiǎng” means “to force” but in japanese “ben kyou” (as we learn early on) means “study”
Also, in Chinese, 小人= “villain, bad person”. In Japanese, it’s dwarf.
爱人 Chinese=spouse, Japanese愛人 mistress
心中 Chinese = beloved
Japanese心中=double suicide
I mean, just from looking at the language, it was inevitable that they would end up at war.
I am not sure if this will get me banned but ほうれんそう, spinach, would sound in German like "Hurensohn" which means son of a b*tch.
To make things even worse, or better, there is a drinking game in Japan called ほうれんそう, where you have to say it several times out loud :D
To give another fun German example, 虫(むし) in German (I worry if I type it out in any language I will be banned) we add a c between the mus and the hi and then it is a word for a vagina that also means cat.
I'm also German, but never made the connection...
Many Japanese people tell me that the German "Ach so" (Oh, I see) sounds just like あっ、そう. Funnily enough, the meaning is the same.
Adding to the German:
真剣(しんけん）sounds like Schinken (ham).
And "Manko" means just flaw/shortcoming in German, but shouldn't be said out loud in public in JP.
Since Indonesian and Japanese are phonetically accurate, a lot of words are pronounced identically or similarly.
[JP / ID]
様 (polite, formal suffix) / sama (same); 開く (to open) / aku (I/me); 噛む (to bite) / kamu (you); 髪/神/紙 (hair/god/paper) / kami (we/us); 生 (raw) / nama (name); 書く(to write) / kaku (stiff); 春 (spring) / haru (emotional); 世話 (looking after) / sewa (rent); 餌 (pet food) / esa (singular), etc.
Here are the infamous words: mangkok (bowl) and cincin (ring); can you guess what those are? 👀
I always thought it was funny that そう and "so" are basically the same.
そうですか?
Is that so?
And they also sound the same!
Also, "so" and さあ. They're basically the same, right? Both are filler, both call the listener to attention.
And they sound almost the same.
My teacher (Hungarian) told us about his experience seeing Star Wars for the first time in Japanese. When Luke is being confessed to by Vader that he's Luke's father, Luke says: 嘘だ！[うそだ] Which was very funny because 'uszoda' in Hungarian means "swimming pool".
here some words... similar to italian.
koso = coso/cosa (thing)
sono = sono (I am )
katsu = ca\*\*o (a swear word)
matsu = mazzo (bouquet, bunch)
majika: magica/magico (magic)
koko de : coccodè (the sound of the hen)
mattou: matto (crazy/insane)
kuro: culo (ass)
kasa: casa (house/home)
There is an entire category of Finnish jokes that make fun of how similar Japanese and Finnish sometimes sound. (Finnish j is pronounced like Japanese y.)
* What is the name of a Japanese car mechanic?
* Hajosiko Toyotasi (“Did your Toyota break”)
* What is the name of a Japanese bastard?
* Mokomaki Kusimuki (“You mug of piss”)
The Japanese retaliated by using Finnish male names for the members of the all girl Keizoku team in Girls und Panzer: Mika, Aki, and Mikko. This was very funny to me, as my friend group includes all three.
There are also actual false friends. If my aunt went to Japan they’d call her ミンナさん. “Henna Aho” is a completely valid full name of a Finnish woman. The Japanese woman’s name 真帆 (まほ) means “infertile cow” in Finnish. The Japanese name 六花 (りっか) is either rikka (“small piece of trash”) or likka (“girl”). The voice actress 花澤香菜 (はなざわ・かな) often gets called Kanahana by the English fandom, which is “chicken faucet” in Finnish. But 麗奈 (れいな) becomes Leena, which is also a woman’s name.
Indonesian here. Some are identical.
名前 (name) and nama (name)
悪 (evil) and aku (I, me)
朝 (morning) and asa (hope)
書く (to write) and kaku (stiff)
晩 (evening) and ban (wheel)
霧 (きり/fog) and kiri (left)
ぶるぶる/ブルブル (trembling) and buru-buru (hurry/in a hurry)
傘 (umbrella) and kasa (gauze)
北 (north) and kita (we, us)
時花 (flowers of the season) and jika (if)
入り (entering) and iri (jealous)
すか (disappointment) and suka (liking, fond of)
また (again, once again) and mata (eye)
肩 (shoulder) and kata (word)
カタカナ and katakan (say)
紙/神/髪 (paper/god/hair) and kami (we, us)
and many more...
Huh, same in german, too.
Well, it's not in dictionaries that way but more like language used by or towards little children but surely everyone would know what it means.
あんた (anta, you) sounds a lot like أنت in Arabic (also you, pronounced anta, but the pronunciation is slightly different)
(PS: Arabic is not really my mother tongue)
not my native language, not a REAL language at all, but I will never ever forget how to say "to home" because of Jawas from star wars.
Because Jawas move their houses around, they always shout "うちに !"
One of the very first words I learned in Japanese class was かばん, and it's pronounced exactly the same as the russian word "кабан", which leans "boar" — it always made me laugh a lot and I remembered the word forever.
Oh right! Didn't think about this one because it's a less common word but it's funny that in both cases it just perfectly matches, and concerns animals haha
茶 and chá (tea) in portuguese 見る and "miro" from the first person's conjugation of mirar (i aimem) 了 and rio (river) か and cá (here) また and mata (he\\she kills) from the third person's conjugation of matar 等価 and touca (hood) 馬 and uma (one when reffering to a female term)
funny thing is that chá is not even a false friend, you can google this for greater detail but basically every language in the world has a word for tea that either sounds something like tea or cha (due to historic trade routes), so japanese and portuguese (and so many others) word for tea have the same ethnological root
Not entirely related, but I couldn't resist sharing: my mum and I took Japanese classes together for a couple of years. Some time later, after we had stopped the classes, we were in a train station going to the metro and my mum says, 'Train is "densha", and metro is... what's metro again?'
I say: 'Chikatetsu.'
Mum: 'Like the song? There's a song like that!'
Me: 'A song about chikatetsu? ... Mum, do you mean ABBA's 'Take a chance on me'?'
Mum: 'Yes!'
Ire in Latin and 行く in Japanese. Both are to go, and the stem in Latin is basically i-. Even though Japanese conjugates with a k after the i for the most part, it's closer enough for me.
Also, not a word per se but the fact that lots of Japanese words have specific particles for certain words (e.g. 行く+に/へ reminds me of how Latin verbs sometimes take a specific case in their corresponding words. I know it's not similar in the slightest but the fact that certain verbs accompany certain particles really reminds me of that.
Same with Spanish *ir* (to go), which is pretty obvious since it comes from Latin.
But then there's also *mirar* (to look), which sounds close enough to 見る.
It's not even my fucking language but i always think "wall" in Japanese is "mura". It is not.
also these are called false friends
also, いつの間に, "it's no money"
豚カツ sounds like “toh, n’cazzu”, dialectal Italian for “here it is, a dick”.
In general, every word containing かつ or がつ sounds like “dick” in Italian.
名前 sounds like “nome”, meaning the same thing.
見る sounds like “miro” and “mira”, respectively an archaic version of “I see, I observe” and “aim”.
ちんちん is the Italian equivalent to “cheers!”.
ね sounds like “ne?” and “né”, respectively “isn’t that right” (like in Japanese) and “neither/nor”.
その sounds like “I am”.
I was playing Aokana and came across this Katakana word... I recognized it right away from the context!
ギプス = Gips (orthopedic cast, I know this one from Czech slang word for "sádra" (also originated from German)
I always thought that it was cute that 見る and mirar are both "see"
As an English speaker whose entry into the language is music, most jargon is already English loanwords. There are still some adjectives I struggle with, in the sense that I know certain things are compliments but I can't tell them apart from each other or in what way one might be better than another, for now.
This could be a very long list, but a few from the top of my head:
月: cute
島: smooth, slick
(This makes 月島 sound pretty funny)
観光: gonorrhea
久喜: johnny (like a childish way to refer to one's man's parts)
傘: scythe (also, be the subject of getting failed, e.g. in an exam)
馬刺し: a very vulgar and a little bit humorous way to refer to the act of sexual intercourse
向き: a dude (usually a weird one, only male, and generally physically non-imposing)
火山: boiler (this actually made this word very easy to remember!)
豚: silly, stupid
夏季 (or カキ, like the fruit): poop
My mother tongue is Vietnamese, which also has a lot of loan words from Middle Chinese, so you can imagine there are a lot of words that sound almost exactly the same between the two languages, espcially those that utilize onyomi. Some that I can think of off the top of my head are 安全 (anzen) and "an toàn", 注意 (chuui) and "chú ý", 広告 (koukoku) and "quảng cáo". Makes leaning readings a lot easier too.
Have not seen anyone mentioned Thai yet. Here are what I can think of at the moment.
きれい(clean/beautiful)~ugly in Thai
はい-to give in Thai
ちんちん(penis)-really in Thai
I'm French but さけぶ sounds like more in french to "Sac bu" meaning "drunk bag" (so "I drunk a bag" with drunk being adjectivial) but even if sacre bleu is not a lot used since more than 150 years, nobody would even say one day "drunk bag" because nobody drink bag lmao
i speak spanish
山 sounds like 'llama' which means 'flame' or the third person conjugation of 'to call'
中 sounds like 'naca', mexican slang for something i dont know how to translate, but it's an adjective and it is not a nice thing to say about someone/something
から sounds like cara/caro, which means expensive
同僚 almost sounds like 'dolió a conjugation of 'to hurt'
In Ukrainian, and other Slavic languages, I noticed some similarities in words like:
山 (Yama) - basically means pit in Ukrainian, which is really just a mountain in opposite direction
火山 (Kazan) - means cauldron in Ukrainian, and it sure is a big ass boiling cauldron
お婆ちゃん (Obaachan) - sounds similar to "Baba" or "Babusya" which are grandma and granny respectively
女 (On'na) - in Ukrainian sounds similarly (Vona), and in russian exactly (Ona) like "she"
And one final similariry i found is in word continent - 大陸 (Tairiku) - very similar to materik, and also means continent
This is one of the reasons I learn Japanese, to find similarities in our languages, it's very interesting for me
Spanish:
お休み(おやすみ) =hoy asumí (today I assumed)
やった= ya 'ta! (Very badly pronounced "ya está")
もの (thing) = mono (monkey)
あの=anus in spanish
あき= aqui (here) though it isnt that similar
I had a list for JP -> FR but I forgot some of them
But the one I remember "おしゃれ" seems like "Au chalet" meaning "at the lodge"
Google helped me for the following :
ギリギリ = onomatopeas for tickles
聞く = kikoo "weeb", if you ask, "kikoo jap" (not the same jap as british one, this one is not an offence) means "weebaoos
貧乏 = Bimbo, often an speeched word where we makes the final "o" longer. It's considerated like an opposite because bimbo is often seen like a stereopical girl that loves to show her money
This one I didn't get it before reading, but 試す looks like "T'as mes sous ?!", in English "Have you my cash?" the final す emphasis looks like an interrogation form
耳 sounds like in french "mimi", onomatopeas of "mignon" (cute)
家内, canaille means a bad boy, often depicted like a small, childish bad boy
七 as なな would be the same as 女, it does mean woman but is a lot less respectful so you use it only in informal context
文句 it sounds like "mon cul", I will not translate it, it's both an expression in English and in French, but also a normal two word nominal group in grammar. You can use it in context like "I hurt (文句)" and it would a normal sentence
The list I use start to be bad, but I will took the best
(犬)張り子, first word in the list I didn't know, はりこ in french sounds like bean, so you say inu hariko I think of a dog in bean
The most known : さば - it means maquereau in french, mackerel in English, there are a lot of memes about it, さば looks like "ça va?", "how it is going ?", and conversation of 3 sentences long using only ça va exist in French, so if you look on youtube "さばさばさば" I'm pretty sure you'll find the most known meme about Japanese word sounding similar of French word
角 "kado" sounds like cadeau (present)
箇所 "kasho", looks like a cachot (one kind of dungeon)
the last, マジ(マジ), alone it sounds like magie (magic), used twice, it means more magic
First thing that comes to mind is Bleach author Tite Kubo, his name means dick hut in Filipino.
Another word is 炭酸(tansan) but rather than meaning fizz it refers to the bottlecap here.
There's also the filler word あの(ano) that has the exact same usage but in Filipino it means "what" instead of "that"
英雄譚(eiyuutan) is funny because it sounds like sexual intercourse(iyutan)
加賀 (Kaga) Kaga sounds very similar to "caga" (a verbal conjugation of cagar), which means "dump" (to take a dump), to defecate.
間々田駅 (estación mamada) "Mamada" can mean "bl*wjob".
these are called false friends linguistically, in case you want to find lists of them. A few of my favorites in the three languages mentioned:
mansion in english and mansion in japanese is a funny one, basically opposites
nudo and nude, delito and delight, there ar equite a few between spanish and english since they are more similar.
As a bonus there are a lot between japanese and chinese as they are both cjkv as well. My personal fave is one that means red fish in one language.... and butt naked in the other 😂
I believe you'd like to see things that while phonetically similar are completely different in meaning, but I do remember newspapers ocasionally doing a clickbaity article pinpointing how some words are similar phonetically and in their meaning between basque and japanese. The few I remember are:
風 (かぜ) kaze = haize (あいせ/はいせ)
鳥 (とり) tori = txori (ちょり)
はい hai = bai (ばい)
I'll go search for those articles and come with an update.
Apparently this thing has been noticed since 1909
https://www.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus/eu/riev/la-soi-disant-parente-des-langues-basque-et-japonaise/rart-12549/#
In Vietnamese, a lot of the words has Chinese origin (Sino-Vietnamese), so countless words have similar pronunciation and meaning to kanji. We even have a set of rules we can use to kind of guess the kanji from the respective Vietnamese word.
That's an interesting one because you may think that the English word came from Chinese (from where the Japanese word originates), but apparently *typhoon* comes from the Ancient Greek τυφῶν and the similarity is just a big coincidence.
口 sounds like पुच्ची in my native Marathi, which means vagina.
I guess they're both holes, so sure.
Edit: oh, and み is eerily similar to the Devanagari letter म.
The nickname for one of my friends is hero in Portuguese. Hero in Portuguese is pronounced eroi.
I'm not sure if the intonation is 100% the same, but it makes me chuckle.
I was gonna say “I always thought it was funny how the English word “skosh” and the Japanese word “sukoshi” mean the same the thing. I always assumed skosh was Yiddish in origin, but I wanted to look it up before I posted.
Apparently skosh actually originated from sukoshi.
Color me surprised.
There are some similar words in Hungarian:
傘[かさ] 'kasza' scythe
辛い[からい] 'karaj' loin (pork)
嘘[うそ] 'úszó' swimmer
観光[かんこう] 'kankó' gonorrhoea
貧乏[びんぼう] 'bimbó' sprout
今[いま] 'ima' prayer
廊下[ろうか] 'róka' fox
火山[かざん] 'kazán' boiler
I don't know how common this is but pretty much anyone who is a Japanese 101 student that I've met in real life (but never online) would use "don't touch my mustache" as a mnemonic device to remember: どういたしまして. It was so stupid it spread like wildfire. Anyone here able to confirm this is actually a thing online too, beyond just people I've met?
そうです sounds almost like "dis so" said backwards in Afrikaans. It means the same thing.
The sentence ender ね is also used exactly like that: Afrikaans has "nè".
In my native:
期待(kitai, "to wait for something with a great hope") - Kitai, "China"
A bunch of i-adj's looks like imperative verbs. Like
かたい - roll it
くさい - bite it
だるい - give it as a gift. Sometimes it may be used like "excuse me", in my second language.
E.t.c
Also there is words that sounds a bit differently but have same meaning
人生(jinsei,life) - jizn' (palatalized n)
幸せ(shiawase, happiness) - Shyastye
Uso (Úszó) - swimmer in Hungarian,
Kasa (Casa) - indicating someones home/house in Romanian,
Kin (Kín) - agony, pain in Hungarian,
Ho (Hó) - snow in Hungarian,
Te - You (informal) in Hungarian,
Mizu - it basically means what’s up in Hungarian,
Niku (Nicu) - it’s a nickname for Nicolae in Romanian.
These are the only ones I can think of it as of right now.
I get really annoyed when my friends get giggly at そうか and 好き, because in Russian (and probably other eastern Slavic languages) it sounds like a word for "bitch" and "bitches" respectively.
ね means "no" in Czech and we often use it the same way as the Japanese particle, putting it at the end of a sentence, expecting the listener to confirm what we said.
牛「うし」sounds like "ears" in Czech
あの sounds like "yes" in Czech
組んだ 「くんだ」sounds like "pu*sy" in Czech
curious fact is that the second language I was going to learn was czech for no reason I was just attracted to the language xD I don't remember in the end why I didn't do it (although seeing today how complicated it's, I have an idea) but after this and more comments about czech I'll keep it in mind in the future it sounds curious
Well the complicated thing about our language is that we have 7 grammatical cases, which fulfill a similar role as Japanese particles, but you have to learn a new ending for each word instead of just attaching a particle
All the names of the days of a week are very inappropriate sounding for russian ear.
Especially 土曜日 and 日曜日. The yoobi part sounds like a part of the word meaning “f*cked”.
So
Doyoobi sounds like a day I’m completely f*cked… “Do” is a prefix in Russian that can add completion tho the word.
Nichiyoobi sounds a little like a word “nichego”(ничего), which means “nothing”. So it turns out to be a day I’m doing f*ckin nothing.
And everything with kaki and kaku or kaki or kake (出かけます). Makes some friends chuckle. Sounds like a “kakat’”(какать) - to take a dump.
I found that おそらくand "ou será que" are pronounced rather similarly. When I first heard it I thought they were speaking portuguese haha. "Ou será que" could be used as "or will it be" depending on the context of course. I found it interesting that in some situations these two can have the same role in a sentence.
In Turkish, the word for tea is "çay" (chay phoneticly) and in Japanese "Cha". Water in Turkish is "su" and in Japanese "Mizu'" , "Sonra " (in turkish which means after that) "sore de" in Japanese. "yabanjin" which means "stranger in Japanese", in turkish "yabanci".
The word 真剣 (しんけん) sounds like the German word "Schinken", which means ham :D Always catches me off guard.
Also the obvious （アル）バイト, which comes from German "Arbeit", which means work. As in a full time job, not like part time work like in Japanese. Makes me wonder what the Japanese think about fill time jobs in Germany...
My native language is Mandarin Chinese and some words are insanely similar in both pronouncation and written text. There will be even more if a native Chinese speaker uses a variant further down the south like Wu or Cantonese. And yes, kanjis are cheating for us in reading and writing.
Kids here in the Philippines call rock paper scissors "bato bato pick," but some also call it "jack and poy" which was probably borrowed from じゃん拳ぽん
Another local word with Japanese origins is this type of flour noodle called "odong" which sounds like うどん, even though odong and udon are completely different types of noodles.
I mean, this is due to the word being a Chinese loanword, but お茶(ocha) is like Bengali Cha and Hindi chai.
女(when read as 'me') sounds like Bengali 'me', also meaning girl/female.
Edit: there's also the plethora of English loanwords
For some reason “見る” is the same as “miro” in Latin (seeing). I don’t think there can be any link between them, at this distance in both time and space.
A lot of people are still labouring under the misapprehension that the “emo” in “emoji” (as is used in English) comes from “emoticons” (as in, icons which express emotions).
But it’s totally unrelated. It comes from 絵文(字) - “illustrated letter”.
Oh this is an amusing one because I found countless words in JP that sound and mean the same in my native tongue TA. I can’t think of a lot right now but here’s what I can get into my mind now:
いいえ iie / இல்லை illai: No
名前 namae / [Old Tamil] நாமம் nāmam: Name
あちら achchira / அங்கே angē: Over there
[Colloquial] これはいるのか korē wa irunoka / [Colloquial] இது இருக்கா? Ithu irukkā: Is this there?
I’ll keep updating as I keep coming across more
if I had a coin for every time "kuchi" sounds like vagina in other language, [I would have two coins](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/s/TRTtmmJZNK) , which is not much but it is rare that it happened twice
Miliky in lingala mean milk just like miruku.
Nani mean who instead of the japanese who mean what.
We also share some name like Yashima the word prononciation is pratically the same so I fortunately have no problem with the way they prononce words.
美徳 (びとく), the japanese word for virtue, is pronounced exactly the same as the french expression "bite au cul", which literally means "d\*ck in the \*ss".
Best part is that there is a 七つの大罪 spin-off called 七つの美徳
二段(にだん) sounds like 'nie dan' in Dutch, which is similar to "or not?/isn't it?" In English. When I was going for my nidan in karate, everytime I told someone they immediately went "Oh I am sure you are working hard for that. Of nie dan?" (Arent you?)
I’m Romanian.
Probably a bit of an odd one, but 「はいて」 (To enter) always sounded to me like “Haide„ which is more along the lines of “come along”.
There’s also the funny fact that 「20日」 has the *exact* same pronunciation as the name my grandmother gave her cat, Hațca.
乱暴 「らんぼう」"rough", "rude, "violent", which sounds pretty much like how John Rambo is. This is how my anki card for 乱暴 looks like: [https://imgur.com/hKi5X1R](https://imgur.com/hKi5X1R)
I haven't studied in a long time, but I took a small class and the identical vowels (to spanish) always tickled me. When practicing I would accidentally fill space with spanish words.
傘 「かさ」"Casa". "House" in Spanish. たこ "Tako". "Octopus" in Spanish.
孫「まご」"mago". "Wizard" in Spanish
洗濯物 「せんたくもの」"Sentakumono", sounds like "Sit down, monkey" in Spanish. That's how I remembered this one. 😅
"sentate qliao mono" me suena , nunca lo había pensado así XDDD
So wizard is "mago" in japanese? I'm amazed because is literally mago in italian too
No, japanese version means grandchild
Spanish and Italian are pretty similar so I'm not surprised one bit tho
ダメ = dame = “give me” 邪魔 = llama (depending on accent) 籠 = cagó = he pooped 辛い = caray = damn 黒 = culo = ass 全て = súbete = “go up”
馬鹿 「ばか」 "Vaca", "Cow" in Spanish.
みる sounds quite similar to “Mira” in spanish too.
This is actually how I remember “to see” in Japanese lol
> たこ "Tako". "Octopus" in Spanish. Octopus in Spanish is *pulpo*. たこ sounds like taco, which can either mean the Mexican food or high heels.
Even 家族 「かぞく」isn’t to far of from Casa in both meanings and prononciation
名前 namae happens to be pretty close to name in English. I also find it easier to remember とても totemo as totally instead of very.
>名前 namae happens to be pretty close to name in English. Because of this, I used to think namae was a Katakana word. Haha.
I thought so too haha
So did I. BTW: The German word, "Name", is even closer to the Japanese than the English one.
つまり to me sounds like *summary*, which is basically what it means: in summary.
That’s interesting. To me, ‘bimbo’ just sounds like 貧乏.
The poor man's bread.
Yeah, Bimbo is a Hispanic bakery brand.
I find it fascinating that namae is actually not a loanword or language migration... these words were invented by totally different peoples who were not in contact. And I, too, mentally translate とてもas a very valley girl like "totally!
設定 sounding a lot like "settings".
Apparently it's the same for 鉛筆(enpitsu) for pencil. The word dates back to the 13th or 14th century and has no connection to the word English, pencil. Amazing coincidence!
とても sounds like Beavis and Butthead trying to speak Spanish
Probably a common one: A long time ago an internet penpal and I used to send pictures of the state of Ohio to each other instead of sayingおはよう (over MSN Messenger if it helps to date it… 👴🏻)
As a born and bred Ohioan I will never ever forget おはよう
so Ohio has been a meme since ancient times? ala
these are called “false friends”! two words that look or sound similar but have completely different meanings. in chinese 勉強 or “miǎn qiǎng” means “to force” but in japanese “ben kyou” (as we learn early on) means “study”
Also, in Chinese, 小人= “villain, bad person”. In Japanese, it’s dwarf. 爱人 Chinese=spouse, Japanese愛人 mistress 心中 Chinese = beloved Japanese心中=double suicide I mean, just from looking at the language, it was inevitable that they would end up at war.
i thought 心中 was inner thoughts and 中心 focus
I'm sure there's a metaphor for the education system somewhere in there
I am not sure if this will get me banned but ほうれんそう, spinach, would sound in German like "Hurensohn" which means son of a b*tch. To make things even worse, or better, there is a drinking game in Japan called ほうれんそう, where you have to say it several times out loud :D
To give another fun German example, 虫(むし) in German (I worry if I type it out in any language I will be banned) we add a c between the mus and the hi and then it is a word for a vagina that also means cat.
蒸し風呂 made me crack up the first time I heard it. It sounds like "Muschibüro", which translates to "vagina office".
10/10 werde jeden Japaner einen ほうれんそう bezeichnen
NO WAY. that’s so funny (i’m also german), i don’t think i’ll ever be able to forget ほうれんそう now lol
I'm also German, but never made the connection... Many Japanese people tell me that the German "Ach so" (Oh, I see) sounds just like あっ、そう. Funnily enough, the meaning is the same.
Adding to the German: 真剣(しんけん）sounds like Schinken (ham). And "Manko" means just flaw/shortcoming in German, but shouldn't be said out loud in public in JP.
Since Indonesian and Japanese are phonetically accurate, a lot of words are pronounced identically or similarly. [JP / ID] 様 (polite, formal suffix) / sama (same); 開く (to open) / aku (I/me); 噛む (to bite) / kamu (you); 髪/神/紙 (hair/god/paper) / kami (we/us); 生 (raw) / nama (name); 書く(to write) / kaku (stiff); 春 (spring) / haru (emotional); 世話 (looking after) / sewa (rent); 餌 (pet food) / esa (singular), etc. Here are the infamous words: mangkok (bowl) and cincin (ring); can you guess what those are? 👀
I always thought it was funny that そう and "so" are basically the same. そうですか? Is that so? And they also sound the same! Also, "so" and さあ. They're basically the same, right? Both are filler, both call the listener to attention. And they sound almost the same.
Luke Skyywalker and the 2 Live Crew taught me "Pop That 口"
Coochie / kuji / 9 o’clock
My teacher (Hungarian) told us about his experience seeing Star Wars for the first time in Japanese. When Luke is being confessed to by Vader that he's Luke's father, Luke says: 嘘だ！[うそだ] Which was very funny because 'uszoda' in Hungarian means "swimming pool".
here some words... similar to italian. koso = coso/cosa (thing) sono = sono (I am ) katsu = ca\*\*o (a swear word) matsu = mazzo (bouquet, bunch) majika: magica/magico (magic) koko de : coccodè (the sound of the hen) mattou: matto (crazy/insane) kuro: culo (ass) kasa: casa (house/home)
あの -> ano/anus (肛門) 閣下(かっか) -> cacca/poop (うんこ) These two are always fun in Italian
Also 女(onna) meaning woman in Japanese Donna meaning woman in Italian
"いい" is similar to "iyi" in Turkish, which is both of means good
Funnily enough, the Hungarian word for good is 'jó', which is pronounced the exact same way as よう which is the volitional form of いい, like in ご機嫌よう.
ババ (as in old hag) means LITERALLY the same thing in Polish. Same pronunciation, same meaning, same negative connotation.
The same goes for Czech and probably other slavic languages. Pretty cool ngl
There is an entire category of Finnish jokes that make fun of how similar Japanese and Finnish sometimes sound. (Finnish j is pronounced like Japanese y.) * What is the name of a Japanese car mechanic? * Hajosiko Toyotasi (“Did your Toyota break”) * What is the name of a Japanese bastard? * Mokomaki Kusimuki (“You mug of piss”) The Japanese retaliated by using Finnish male names for the members of the all girl Keizoku team in Girls und Panzer: Mika, Aki, and Mikko. This was very funny to me, as my friend group includes all three. There are also actual false friends. If my aunt went to Japan they’d call her ミンナさん. “Henna Aho” is a completely valid full name of a Finnish woman. The Japanese woman’s name 真帆 (まほ) means “infertile cow” in Finnish. The Japanese name 六花 (りっか) is either rikka (“small piece of trash”) or likka (“girl”). The voice actress 花澤香菜 (はなざわ・かな) often gets called Kanahana by the English fandom, which is “chicken faucet” in Finnish. But 麗奈 (れいな) becomes Leena, which is also a woman’s name.
>The Japanese woman’s name 真帆 (まほ) means “infertile cow” in Finnish. this is so beautiful www
Will use Henna Aho next time I need to use a character in-game. It's brilliant ✨
Indonesian here. Some are identical. 名前 (name) and nama (name) 悪 (evil) and aku (I, me) 朝 (morning) and asa (hope) 書く (to write) and kaku (stiff) 晩 (evening) and ban (wheel) 霧 (きり/fog) and kiri (left) ぶるぶる/ブルブル (trembling) and buru-buru (hurry/in a hurry) 傘 (umbrella) and kasa (gauze) 北 (north) and kita (we, us) 時花 (flowers of the season) and jika (if) 入り (entering) and iri (jealous) すか (disappointment) and suka (liking, fond of) また (again, once again) and mata (eye) 肩 (shoulder) and kata (word) カタカナ and katakan (say) 紙/神/髪 (paper/god/hair) and kami (we, us) and many more...
閣下 「かっか」"Kakka" means "poop" in Finnish. 烈火 「れっか」"Rekka" means "truck" or "lorry".
"Kakka" means "poop" in Turkish too lol
Huh, same in german, too. Well, it's not in dictionaries that way but more like language used by or towards little children but surely everyone would know what it means.
Also in Spanish, Portuguese, French and Romanian (spelled *caca* in all cases).
In creole as well
乗せる nosić (carry) 山 jama (cave) 困る komar (mosquito)
Also pretty sure it's common across slavic languages to use ne? A ne? The same way japanese uses it to end sentences with a confirmatory question.
あんた (anta, you) sounds a lot like أنت in Arabic (also you, pronounced anta, but the pronunciation is slightly different) (PS: Arabic is not really my mother tongue)
not my native language, not a REAL language at all, but I will never ever forget how to say "to home" because of Jawas from star wars. Because Jawas move their houses around, they always shout "うちに !"
One of the very first words I learned in Japanese class was かばん, and it's pronounced exactly the same as the russian word "кабан", which leans "boar" — it always made me laugh a lot and I remembered the word forever.
There's another one with 多分 (たぶん) which sounds exactly like "Табун", which in Russian is a herd of horses.
Oh right! Didn't think about this one because it's a less common word but it's funny that in both cases it just perfectly matches, and concerns animals haha
茶 and chá (tea) in portuguese 見る and "miro" from the first person's conjugation of mirar (i aimem) 了 and rio (river) か and cá (here) また and mata (he\\she kills) from the third person's conjugation of matar 等価 and touca (hood) 馬 and uma (one when reffering to a female term)
funny thing is that chá is not even a false friend, you can google this for greater detail but basically every language in the world has a word for tea that either sounds something like tea or cha (due to historic trade routes), so japanese and portuguese (and so many others) word for tea have the same ethnological root
Your mention of Miro reminded me that I always think of the Spanish Mira with Japanese Miru
ちんちん is the japanese for penis, chin chin is the french for cheers They sound the same
Iirc in Nigeria there's some food called "chin chin" and a "chin chin man". XD
In Malay/Indonesian, "cincin" means ring
どろぼう is pretty funny if you combine Spanish and English If someone "Do + Robo (steal)", it's a thief, a どろぼう I love it xD
My native language is Chinese. There are many words that came from Japanese directly without any modification
見る sounds like Mirar in Spanish, which also means to look.
There's a town in Argentina called Mar de Ajó, which is pronounced almost exactly as まるでアホ, "like an idiot".
Jajaja me encanta
Not entirely related, but I couldn't resist sharing: my mum and I took Japanese classes together for a couple of years. Some time later, after we had stopped the classes, we were in a train station going to the metro and my mum says, 'Train is "densha", and metro is... what's metro again?' I say: 'Chikatetsu.' Mum: 'Like the song? There's a song like that!' Me: 'A song about chikatetsu? ... Mum, do you mean ABBA's 'Take a chance on me'?' Mum: 'Yes!'
あ、ぞう is eerily similar in sound and use to German "achso".
In German, especially spoken in dialect, „そうですね“ sounds AND means exactly the same.
や蛮人 and "yabancı" in Turkish are both means stranger, and pronounced 85% the same.
扉 tobira is pronounced like the swedish word tåbira, meaning sweaty feet はい means shark in swedish. its spelled haj though
Hai in German :D
滅びる[ほろびる] sounds kinda like "horrible" 展示[てんじ] sounds like 10-G (10 grand) きちんとした sounds kinda like "kitchen toaster"
>展示[てんじ] sounds like 10-G (10 grand) I'm amazed at how specific this example is and how you look at things xD
カックアンドバールートルッチャ sounds just like cock and ball torture in English.. too crazy to be coincidence imo
Ire in Latin and 行く in Japanese. Both are to go, and the stem in Latin is basically i-. Even though Japanese conjugates with a k after the i for the most part, it's closer enough for me. Also, not a word per se but the fact that lots of Japanese words have specific particles for certain words (e.g. 行く+に/へ reminds me of how Latin verbs sometimes take a specific case in their corresponding words. I know it's not similar in the slightest but the fact that certain verbs accompany certain particles really reminds me of that.
Same with Spanish *ir* (to go), which is pretty obvious since it comes from Latin. But then there's also *mirar* (to look), which sounds close enough to 見る.
今「いま」 sounds like the way my OChem professor said my friend's name (Emma) when he needed her quickly. So a very specific false cognate!
暖かかった sounds like “attack of a cat” in my language:)
Well, 口 (kuchi), and coochie
It's not even my fucking language but i always think "wall" in Japanese is "mura". It is not. also these are called false friends also, いつの間に, "it's no money"
豚カツ sounds like “toh, n’cazzu”, dialectal Italian for “here it is, a dick”. In general, every word containing かつ or がつ sounds like “dick” in Italian. 名前 sounds like “nome”, meaning the same thing. 見る sounds like “miro” and “mira”, respectively an archaic version of “I see, I observe” and “aim”. ちんちん is the Italian equivalent to “cheers!”. ね sounds like “ne?” and “né”, respectively “isn’t that right” (like in Japanese) and “neither/nor”. その sounds like “I am”.
I was playing Aokana and came across this Katakana word... I recognized it right away from the context! ギプス = Gips (orthopedic cast, I know this one from Czech slang word for "sádra" (also originated from German)
ほら = Hola (in Polish) They both can be translated to "hey!" but have different nuance
I finally know a word in polish without knowing it😈
I always thought that it was cute that 見る and mirar are both "see" As an English speaker whose entry into the language is music, most jargon is already English loanwords. There are still some adjectives I struggle with, in the sense that I know certain things are compliments but I can't tell them apart from each other or in what way one might be better than another, for now.
The word Aramaa is the same word Alamak in Malay. Used in almost the same way, like when you did something accidentally.
Where my BANANA homies at
This could be a very long list, but a few from the top of my head: 月: cute 島: smooth, slick (This makes 月島 sound pretty funny) 観光: gonorrhea 久喜: johnny (like a childish way to refer to one's man's parts) 傘: scythe (also, be the subject of getting failed, e.g. in an exam) 馬刺し: a very vulgar and a little bit humorous way to refer to the act of sexual intercourse 向き: a dude (usually a weird one, only male, and generally physically non-imposing) 火山: boiler (this actually made this word very easy to remember!) 豚: silly, stupid 夏季 (or カキ, like the fruit): poop
My mother tongue is Vietnamese, which also has a lot of loan words from Middle Chinese, so you can imagine there are a lot of words that sound almost exactly the same between the two languages, espcially those that utilize onyomi. Some that I can think of off the top of my head are 安全 (anzen) and "an toàn", 注意 (chuui) and "chú ý", 広告 (koukoku) and "quảng cáo". Makes leaning readings a lot easier too.
Have not seen anyone mentioned Thai yet. Here are what I can think of at the moment. きれい(clean/beautiful)~ugly in Thai はい-to give in Thai ちんちん(penis)-really in Thai
Can I ask where are u from bc I've never heard kuchi to refer to something cute. and kuro = culo is criminal. 😭
I'm not French but さけぶ (scream) and sacre bleu (damn it) sound really similar to me
I'm French but さけぶ sounds like more in french to "Sac bu" meaning "drunk bag" (so "I drunk a bag" with drunk being adjectivial) but even if sacre bleu is not a lot used since more than 150 years, nobody would even say one day "drunk bag" because nobody drink bag lmao
i speak spanish 山 sounds like 'llama' which means 'flame' or the third person conjugation of 'to call' 中 sounds like 'naca', mexican slang for something i dont know how to translate, but it's an adjective and it is not a nice thing to say about someone/something から sounds like cara/caro, which means expensive 同僚 almost sounds like 'dolió a conjugation of 'to hurt'
In Ukrainian, and other Slavic languages, I noticed some similarities in words like: 山 (Yama) - basically means pit in Ukrainian, which is really just a mountain in opposite direction 火山 (Kazan) - means cauldron in Ukrainian, and it sure is a big ass boiling cauldron お婆ちゃん (Obaachan) - sounds similar to "Baba" or "Babusya" which are grandma and granny respectively 女 (On'na) - in Ukrainian sounds similarly (Vona), and in russian exactly (Ona) like "she" And one final similariry i found is in word continent - 大陸 (Tairiku) - very similar to materik, and also means continent This is one of the reasons I learn Japanese, to find similarities in our languages, it's very interesting for me
Spanish: お休み(おやすみ) =hoy asumí (today I assumed) やった= ya 'ta! (Very badly pronounced "ya está") もの (thing) = mono (monkey) あの=anus in spanish あき= aqui (here) though it isnt that similar
I had a list for JP -> FR but I forgot some of them But the one I remember "おしゃれ" seems like "Au chalet" meaning "at the lodge" Google helped me for the following : ギリギリ = onomatopeas for tickles 聞く = kikoo "weeb", if you ask, "kikoo jap" (not the same jap as british one, this one is not an offence) means "weebaoos 貧乏 = Bimbo, often an speeched word where we makes the final "o" longer. It's considerated like an opposite because bimbo is often seen like a stereopical girl that loves to show her money This one I didn't get it before reading, but 試す looks like "T'as mes sous ?!", in English "Have you my cash?" the final す emphasis looks like an interrogation form 耳 sounds like in french "mimi", onomatopeas of "mignon" (cute) 家内, canaille means a bad boy, often depicted like a small, childish bad boy 七 as なな would be the same as 女, it does mean woman but is a lot less respectful so you use it only in informal context 文句 it sounds like "mon cul", I will not translate it, it's both an expression in English and in French, but also a normal two word nominal group in grammar. You can use it in context like "I hurt (文句)" and it would a normal sentence The list I use start to be bad, but I will took the best (犬)張り子, first word in the list I didn't know, はりこ in french sounds like bean, so you say inu hariko I think of a dog in bean The most known : さば - it means maquereau in french, mackerel in English, there are a lot of memes about it, さば looks like "ça va?", "how it is going ?", and conversation of 3 sentences long using only ça va exist in French, so if you look on youtube "さばさばさば" I'm pretty sure you'll find the most known meme about Japanese word sounding similar of French word 角 "kado" sounds like cadeau (present) 箇所 "kasho", looks like a cachot (one kind of dungeon) the last, マジ(マジ), alone it sounds like magie (magic), used twice, it means more magic
First thing that comes to mind is Bleach author Tite Kubo, his name means dick hut in Filipino. Another word is 炭酸(tansan) but rather than meaning fizz it refers to the bottlecap here. There's also the filler word あの(ano) that has the exact same usage but in Filipino it means "what" instead of "that" 英雄譚(eiyuutan) is funny because it sounds like sexual intercourse(iyutan)
加賀 (Kaga) Kaga sounds very similar to "caga" (a verbal conjugation of cagar), which means "dump" (to take a dump), to defecate. 間々田駅 (estación mamada) "Mamada" can mean "bl*wjob".
大好き (daisuki) sounds like Polish "daj suki" which means "give me bitch" 😭
these are called false friends linguistically, in case you want to find lists of them. A few of my favorites in the three languages mentioned: mansion in english and mansion in japanese is a funny one, basically opposites nudo and nude, delito and delight, there ar equite a few between spanish and english since they are more similar. As a bonus there are a lot between japanese and chinese as they are both cjkv as well. My personal fave is one that means red fish in one language.... and butt naked in the other 😂
北。Or 来た、if you will. Means pp in my language.
ね sounds like „nie,” the Polish word for “no,” and both are often used like the English word “eh” at the end of sentences for affirmation.
Considering my native language is Vietnamese we have many words that actually sound the same or have the same Sino root haha
I believe you'd like to see things that while phonetically similar are completely different in meaning, but I do remember newspapers ocasionally doing a clickbaity article pinpointing how some words are similar phonetically and in their meaning between basque and japanese. The few I remember are: 風 (かぜ) kaze = haize (あいせ/はいせ) 鳥 (とり) tori = txori (ちょり) はい hai = bai (ばい) I'll go search for those articles and come with an update.
Apparently this thing has been noticed since 1909 https://www.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus/eu/riev/la-soi-disant-parente-des-langues-basque-et-japonaise/rart-12549/#
車輪 sounds a lot like the french Chariot, and they have similar meanings too (a chariot is a kind of vehicle)
baka means probably and cow in filipino, asa means hope and ototoi sounds like totoy which means penis hahahaha
In Vietnamese, a lot of the words has Chinese origin (Sino-Vietnamese), so countless words have similar pronunciation and meaning to kanji. We even have a set of rules we can use to kind of guess the kanji from the respective Vietnamese word.
台風 = typhoon They both mean very similar things.
That's an interesting one because you may think that the English word came from Chinese (from where the Japanese word originates), but apparently *typhoon* comes from the Ancient Greek τυφῶν and the similarity is just a big coincidence.
That makes it even more cool! Thank you for letting me know.
スコップ 、 ランドセル、 コーヒ、 メス、 アルコール、 ビール、 ダンス、 ガラス、 ガス、 コップ、 コルク、 コック、 オルゴール Are all loanwords from dutch aka my language so thode i guess
あなた انت in arabic Both mean "you" and sound similar
口 sounds like पुच्ची in my native Marathi, which means vagina. I guess they're both holes, so sure. Edit: oh, and み is eerily similar to the Devanagari letter म.
The nickname for one of my friends is hero in Portuguese. Hero in Portuguese is pronounced eroi. I'm not sure if the intonation is 100% the same, but it makes me chuckle.
医者 (Isha) , Doctor in Japanese and Woman in Hebrew.
we use the word "dorobo" for thief, too.
貯金 sounds like a racial slur in Indonesian.
I was gonna say “I always thought it was funny how the English word “skosh” and the Japanese word “sukoshi” mean the same the thing. I always assumed skosh was Yiddish in origin, but I wanted to look it up before I posted. Apparently skosh actually originated from sukoshi. Color me surprised.
There are some similar words in Hungarian: 傘[かさ] 'kasza' scythe 辛い[からい] 'karaj' loin (pork) 嘘[うそ] 'úszó' swimmer 観光[かんこう] 'kankó' gonorrhoea 貧乏[びんぼう] 'bimbó' sprout 今[いま] 'ima' prayer 廊下[ろうか] 'róka' fox 火山[かざん] 'kazán' boiler
ペン sounds just like pen.
Not my native language, but I think it's fascinating that the on'yomi for 海 (かい) sounds the same as "kai" in Hawaiian, and both mean "ocean/sea."
I don't know how common this is but pretty much anyone who is a Japanese 101 student that I've met in real life (but never online) would use "don't touch my mustache" as a mnemonic device to remember: どういたしまして. It was so stupid it spread like wildfire. Anyone here able to confirm this is actually a thing online too, beyond just people I've met?
綿（わた） and Russian вата (váta) both meaning cotton wool
I should have zero excuses for having poor vocab
そうです sounds almost like "dis so" said backwards in Afrikaans. It means the same thing. The sentence ender ね is also used exactly like that: Afrikaans has "nè".
In my native: 期待(kitai, "to wait for something with a great hope") - Kitai, "China" A bunch of i-adj's looks like imperative verbs. Like かたい - roll it くさい - bite it だるい - give it as a gift. Sometimes it may be used like "excuse me", in my second language. E.t.c Also there is words that sounds a bit differently but have same meaning 人生(jinsei,life) - jizn' (palatalized n) 幸せ(shiawase, happiness) - Shyastye
芝居(しばい) sounds kinda like shibal (offensive word) in Korean, or しろ sounds similar to shiro (don't like) in Korean
Nha (okay) in vietnamese sounds kinda like "nya" (cat sound) in japanese😂
あの means "what" in the Philippines, but sometimes we use it like how it's used in Japanese
喫茶 kissa = a cat in finnish
喫茶(きっさ) is pronounced the same as the Swedish kissa, which means to pee. メイド喫茶 therefore sounds kinda funny to me lol.
In japanese, 「悪魔」 means devil but in romanian "acuma" means right now
あなた and انت (you) in arabic sound kinda similar
Uso (Úszó) - swimmer in Hungarian, Kasa (Casa) - indicating someones home/house in Romanian, Kin (Kín) - agony, pain in Hungarian, Ho (Hó) - snow in Hungarian, Te - You (informal) in Hungarian, Mizu - it basically means what’s up in Hungarian, Niku (Nicu) - it’s a nickname for Nicolae in Romanian. These are the only ones I can think of it as of right now.
I get really annoyed when my friends get giggly at そうか and 好き, because in Russian (and probably other eastern Slavic languages) it sounds like a word for "bitch" and "bitches" respectively.
There are some loan words that sound similar. Like アルバイト.
ね means "no" in Czech and we often use it the same way as the Japanese particle, putting it at the end of a sentence, expecting the listener to confirm what we said. 牛「うし」sounds like "ears" in Czech あの sounds like "yes" in Czech 組んだ 「くんだ」sounds like "pu*sy" in Czech
curious fact is that the second language I was going to learn was czech for no reason I was just attracted to the language xD I don't remember in the end why I didn't do it (although seeing today how complicated it's, I have an idea) but after this and more comments about czech I'll keep it in mind in the future it sounds curious
Well the complicated thing about our language is that we have 7 grammatical cases, which fulfill a similar role as Japanese particles, but you have to learn a new ending for each word instead of just attaching a particle
好き (すき) in Russian (суки) can mean three things - a female dog, or bitches, or small twigs わた is вата and means cotton wool
きれい(beautiful) “ขี้เหร่” in Thai means ugly 😂
All the names of the days of a week are very inappropriate sounding for russian ear. Especially 土曜日 and 日曜日. The yoobi part sounds like a part of the word meaning “f*cked”. So Doyoobi sounds like a day I’m completely f*cked… “Do” is a prefix in Russian that can add completion tho the word. Nichiyoobi sounds a little like a word “nichego”(ничего), which means “nothing”. So it turns out to be a day I’m doing f*ckin nothing. And everything with kaki and kaku or kaki or kake (出かけます). Makes some friends chuckle. Sounds like a “kakat’”(какать) - to take a dump.
I recall a story where a Japanese manager speaking Indonesian mistaking Kantoru (*kantor*, office) with Kontoru (*kontol*, dick)
"Puku" means stomach in Maori.
I found that おそらくand "ou será que" are pronounced rather similarly. When I first heard it I thought they were speaking portuguese haha. "Ou será que" could be used as "or will it be" depending on the context of course. I found it interesting that in some situations these two can have the same role in a sentence.
In Turkish, the word for tea is "çay" (chay phoneticly) and in Japanese "Cha". Water in Turkish is "su" and in Japanese "Mizu'" , "Sonra " (in turkish which means after that) "sore de" in Japanese. "yabanjin" which means "stranger in Japanese", in turkish "yabanci".
You all probably know the name Ursula, right? Well, in German, you can abbreviate it to "Ushi" which sounds exactly like 牛. XD
The word 真剣 (しんけん) sounds like the German word "Schinken", which means ham :D Always catches me off guard. Also the obvious （アル）バイト, which comes from German "Arbeit", which means work. As in a full time job, not like part time work like in Japanese. Makes me wonder what the Japanese think about fill time jobs in Germany...
My native language is Mandarin Chinese and some words are insanely similar in both pronouncation and written text. There will be even more if a native Chinese speaker uses a variant further down the south like Wu or Cantonese. And yes, kanjis are cheating for us in reading and writing.
「臭い」 (kusai) in Russian sound as кусай that means bite
Kids here in the Philippines call rock paper scissors "bato bato pick," but some also call it "jack and poy" which was probably borrowed from じゃん拳ぽん Another local word with Japanese origins is this type of flour noodle called "odong" which sounds like うどん, even though odong and udon are completely different types of noodles.
I mean, this is due to the word being a Chinese loanword, but お茶(ocha) is like Bengali Cha and Hindi chai. 女(when read as 'me') sounds like Bengali 'me', also meaning girl/female. Edit: there's also the plethora of English loanwords
For some reason “見る” is the same as “miro” in Latin (seeing). I don’t think there can be any link between them, at this distance in both time and space.
A lot of people are still labouring under the misapprehension that the “emo” in “emoji” (as is used in English) comes from “emoticons” (as in, icons which express emotions). But it’s totally unrelated. It comes from 絵文(字) - “illustrated letter”.
Pan/パン It means bread in Spanish and Japanese :)
Name and namae are false cognate in English and Japanese
This isn't quite the same but I like how たくさん kinda looks like taksn.
hanji which means yes is similar to kanji and hai
Chin chin in Italian which is something you say when making a toast before drinking
寝ます pronounced nemasu, and نام pronounced nem in Lebanese Arabic dialect. Both mean sleep
来ます(きます) in greek means minced meat. しかし sounds like σκασε(Skase) which means "Shut up"
ピザ sounds very close to pizza in my language( im british)
Oh this is an amusing one because I found countless words in JP that sound and mean the same in my native tongue TA. I can’t think of a lot right now but here’s what I can get into my mind now: いいえ iie / இல்லை illai: No 名前 namae / [Old Tamil] நாமம் nāmam: Name あちら achchira / அங்கே angē: Over there [Colloquial] これはいるのか korē wa irunoka / [Colloquial] இது இருக்கா? Ithu irukkā: Is this there? I’ll keep updating as I keep coming across more
Kuchi (Mouth) has the same exact pronouncitation as the slang term "coochie" in English which means vagina or female genitalia.
if I had a coin for every time "kuchi" sounds like vagina in other language, [I would have two coins](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/s/TRTtmmJZNK) , which is not much but it is rare that it happened twice
すき - suki (like\love). And you might imagine how it sounds in Russian xD xD
Miliky in lingala mean milk just like miruku. Nani mean who instead of the japanese who mean what. We also share some name like Yashima the word prononciation is pratically the same so I fortunately have no problem with the way they prononce words.
美徳 (びとく), the japanese word for virtue, is pronounced exactly the same as the french expression "bite au cul", which literally means "d\*ck in the \*ss". Best part is that there is a 七つの大罪 spin-off called 七つの美徳
Pan and パン in Spanish. They sound and mean the same.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Not quite, but I just learned 秘伝 and it's kind of like "hidden" which is fun.
二段(にだん) sounds like 'nie dan' in Dutch, which is similar to "or not?/isn't it?" In English. When I was going for my nidan in karate, everytime I told someone they immediately went "Oh I am sure you are working hard for that. Of nie dan?" (Arent you?)
I’m Romanian. Probably a bit of an odd one, but 「はいて」 (To enter) always sounded to me like “Haide„ which is more along the lines of “come along”. There’s also the funny fact that 「20日」 has the *exact* same pronunciation as the name my grandmother gave her cat, Hațca.
乱暴 「らんぼう」"rough", "rude, "violent", which sounds pretty much like how John Rambo is. This is how my anki card for 乱暴 looks like: [https://imgur.com/hKi5X1R](https://imgur.com/hKi5X1R)
最高saikou (the best) sounds like psycho to me every time I hear it.
One of my favorites is the translation of “good morning, every morning” = kesa maiasa which sounds like “kiss my ass” 😂
I haven't studied in a long time, but I took a small class and the identical vowels (to spanish) always tickled me. When practicing I would accidentally fill space with spanish words.
辛い "Karai" is the shorten version of "Caralho" which is a slang for Dick
Not my native language, but knowing Spanish 豚 always feels weird to me to say. 豚「ぶた」=pig in Japanese; puta=bitch in Spanish.
Japanese and spanish have neverending list of same words with different meanings