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Tea cups and biting breasts: Japanese phrases that sound like weird English

ScreenHunter_15 Dec. 19 15.25

The Japanese love to have fun with words. Kotoba asobi (wordplay) makes up a pretty large portion of Japanese humor on variety programs and comedy shows – possibly a side effect of so many kanji characters sounding phonetically identical despite wildly different meanings.

But YouTube’s The World Video Tour has taken it to a whole new level with a video series of Japanese words and phrases that sound a lot like totally unrelated English terms. Below, we’ll watch the series’ host have some fun with foreign tourists to see if they understand what he’s trying to say.

It’s kind of tough to pick up the original meanings of the Japanese phrases, so we’ll list them after each video:

湯のみ – Yunomi (“Tea cup”/ ”You know me?”)

兄移住 – Ani iju (“My brother emigrates.” / “I need you.”)

ハマチ – Hamachi (“Yellowtail” / “How much?”)

巨乳噛む？ – Kyonyu kamu? (“Want to bite some huge breasts?” / “Can you come?”)

わしゃ、変 – Washa, hen (“I’m really strange.” / “Wash your hands.”)

寝具破損 – Shingu hasan (“The bed is broken.” / “Sing a song.”)

いつ相撲終わる？ – Itsu sumo owaru? (“When is the sumo over?” / “It’s a small world.”)

幅内っすね！ – Haba nai sune (“Not enough width.” / “Have a nice day.”)

ほった芋いじんな – Hotta imo ijinna (“Don’t touch this potato I dug.” / “What time is it now?”)

We suppose this could end up being good news for Japanese people trying to learn English, as many of the phrases are pretty useful and the misheard Japanese makes for a nice mnemonic device. On the other hand, we recommend if you are trying to learn a new language by listening to songs that you have the (correct) lyrics printed out in front of you while you listen, lest you end up remembering some extremely strange phrases:

Source: The World Video Tour

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