In My Language That Sounds Like / Real Life — Japanese

Incidents of In My Language, That Sounds Like... specifically involving Japanese.

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• suki means "customer" in Filipino and "to like" in Japanese.
• The Japanese name Junko might look really bad on paper to any English speaker without knowledge of Japanese.
• This commonly occurs between the Japanese and Spanish languages despite both having entirely separate linguistic roots, as they not only have similar-sounding words, but also share near-identical pronunciations for vowels and consonants. As a result, Japanese is extremely easy for Spanish speakers to pronounce, and while Japanese speakers have a slightly more difficult time pronouncing Spanish due to sounds like the "j" or the strong "r", it's easier for them to pronounce than English. Here are some prominent examples:
  • Pettanko normally means flat-chested, but in Mexican Spanish, it sounds similar to the word "petacón" (male) or "petacona" (female), which is Mexican slang for "big ass".
  • The Japanese slang word "manko" (pussy) sounds the same as the Spanish word "manco" which means "someone without an arm".
    • "Manko" is also a German word, meaning "flaw" or "defect".
    • In Polish it means "fraud".
    • In Portuguese, "manco" means "lame man" (in the sense of "unable to walk normally").
  • Japanese car makers also seem to have a knack for coming up with car names which are unacceptable in Spanish: there's the Mitsubishi Pajero (Wanker), the Nissan Moco (Snot) and the Mazda Laputa (The whore)!
  • Nissan managed to invert this, for many years they sold a model called Tsubame in Mexico — the name is Japanese for "swallow" (the bird) but sounds like "Pick me up" in Spanish.
  • Many Japanese women who work or have worked as a Miko in Japan have endured the fact that when they traveled to Spanish-speaking countries, that word sounds the same as Mico which is a Spanish synonym for the word monkey. Hilarity Ensues when they try to describe their job there.
  • There is a train station in Oyama, Japan named Mamada. While the word is pretty innocuous in Japanese, in almost all Spanish dialects "mamada" means "fellatio". This is an eternal source for comedy for Spanish speakers who have been to that station.
  • Manga sounds the same as the Spanish word for "sleeve". In Spanish, however, confusion is avoided by using the Japanese word in masculine (El manga), while the Spanish word is feminine (La manga).
    • Manga also sounds like the Malay/Filipino word for "mango" (mangga).
    • The Filipino word for "sleeve" is also "manggas", taken from Spanish.
    • In Portuguese, "manga" can mean either "sleeve" or "mango". It once led to a "Blind Idiot" Translation when a Brazilian restaurant translated "Suco de manga" (mango juice) as "sleeve juice". The Japanese word gets an acute in the second A to stress the last syllable ("mangá").
  • "Muda" means "worthless" in Japanese and "to change clothes" or "to move houses" in Spanish. In the latter, "Muda" is also the feminine word for "mute", as in, woman who's unable to speak.
    • In Russian, it's also an archaic word meaning "balls."
    • It also means "young" in Malay. That said, there’s a paper mill company called "Muda Holdings" in the country. They make paper bags as well as notebooks.
  • Baka (idiot) sounds the same as the Spanish word "Vaca" (cow), causing lots of bilingual jokes among Japanese and Spanish speakers alike. Also the same in Filipino, but the "Baka" with a B is kept. Another Filipino pronunciation of the word (with a stressed stop on the final "a") would mean "maybe".
  • It also sounds like the Sanskrit word for crane, from which the yoga pose bakasana (ironically often misnamed crow pose) takes its name.
    • Baka also sounds like the Malay word for the action of burning something (bakar).
  • To a slightly lesser extent, there's the Kansai dialect equivalent of "Baka": "Aho". For this one, it sounds like the Spanish word for "garlic": "Ajo". Specially hilarious considering there's a family of recipes in Spain called "ajillo" (a way to say "little garlic") which are very popular in Japan. These are different recipes that cook one main ingredient^note The most popular ones being chicken, shrimps, mushrooms and rabbit in a garlic-based sauce. Hilarity Ensues when Japanese people have this explained to them.
  • In a similar way, the Japanese word for "sesame seeds" (Goma) sounds the same as the Spanish word for either "gum" or "rubber".
  • While technically it's not Spanish but a Native Mexican language named "Mayo", which is spoken in Northern Mexico, there is a popular meat stew named Wakabaki, which means "Cow Stew" in Mayo. In Japanese, however, the same word means "Young leaf stage".
  • Playing Mahjong and being able to speak Spanish could be an awkward experience, as many terms used in Riichi Mahjong (the Japanese variant) sound very odd in Spanish:
    • A Chow (Japanese: Chi) is just a one letter short for "Chin", which is the Mexican Spanish for "damn!" or "fuck!"
    • A Pong (Pon) sounds the same as the word for "(You should) put (that)".
    • A Kang (Kan) sounds the same as the alternative word for "dog". It also sounds like “to have intercourse” in the Hokkien dialect (written "cao" in Mandarin, the very word whose homophone is the basis of the "Grass mud horse" meme).
    • A Dora is normally a female name in Spanish, especially in Mexico.
  • "Toro!" Either a bull, or the fatty part of the tuna at a sushi joint.
  • There's a brand of Gashapons named Putitto in Japan. The name itself sounds exactly like, with a single T, the word for "little fag". Technically speaking, it's supposed to be the Japanese spelling of the French word "petite" (small).
  • On a related note, both the Japanese words "uta" (song) and "buta" (pig) sound similar to "puta" (Spanish for "bitch"), making any title with "(Name of person/thing)" no Uta (lit. "[name of person/thing]'s song") would sound disturbingly funny for Spanish speakers, like Saya no Uta.
  • On the topic of “Buta”, the word means “Blind” in Malay but “Pig” in Japanese. This can quickly escalate as an angry Malay speaker may sarcastically ask you if you’re blind (“Anda buta ke?”) when accidentally bumped into, and to a Japanese who barely speaks the language, it sounds like they’re being called a pig.
  • In an inversion of this, for many Japanese speakers many of the names of many drugs used in Mexico can sound funny for them, since many of them ends with the suffix "-san"^note  A Japanese honorific, or sometimes "-zan"^note which can be translated as "slash" or "cut" in Japanese like Calozan, an anti-inflammatory and antirheumatic. To give you an idea on why it's amusing for Japanese speakers, imagine a tiny bottle of Calozan wearing a fancy top hat and monocle who just got knighted by the Queen of England and given the title "Sir Calo".
  • "onakasuita" (お腹すいた) means "I'm hungry" in Japanese. It sounds like Spanish una casita (one small house).
  • "ashita maniawanai" (明日間に合わない) means "I can't make it tomorrow". It sounds similar to a Spanish sentence with the exact opposite meaning: "Hasta mañana" ("See you tomorrow").
  • The Spanish word for "left" is "izquierda". In Japanese that sounds like "the chair disappears" (isu kieruda, 椅子消えるだ).
• In the same way, Korean and Japanese have some words which sound similar but differ in meaning:
  • The Korean dish Kimchi sounds similar to kimochi-ii (to feel good). This is nodded at by a Japanese brand of Kimchi, which released a song called Kimchi no Kimochi-ii (Feeling Good with Kimchi).
  • The Japanese name Saeki sounds similar to saekki, which more or less means "you son of a bitch".
  • Korean Oppa (big brother) sounds similar to Oppai (Japanese for Big Boobs).
• Finnish and Japanese have a great number of "shared" words. Sometimes the word-meanings can be uncannily similar. For example Japanese word "yopparatte", "being drunk", sounds oddly similar to the Finnish "juopporatti", a slightly archaic word for a hopeless drunkard.
• "chin" in Japanese means a... different body part than in English. Bilinguals tend to chuckle uncontrollably while reading The Three Little Pigs.
• In Japanese, "tako", pronounced the same as "taco", is the word for octopus.
• There's a town in Australia called "Eromanga". In Japanese, "ero manga" (erotic manga) are risqué or outright explicit comics. (Which makes it funnier when it's discussed in Samurai Flamenco or Eromanga Sensei.)
• In Japanese, "kuma" means "bear". In Swahili, it's a vulgar slang term for vagina.
• In Japanese, bimbo(na) means "poor" (not having money).^note Although, due to the many ways to romanize Japanese, it sounds like that...but it might not be written that way.
• Yakimanka is a street in Moscow. In Japanese, it sounds like "Fried Cunt".
• Yama is Russian for "pit". And Japanese for "mountain".
  • There is even an old Russian joke about a Japanese racecar driver named Toyama Tokanawa. "To yama to kanava" in Russian means something like "either a pit or a gully" (i.e. the guy can't drive straight).
• Sora is the Japanese word for "sky" and the Finnish word for "gravel".
• Israelis with the name Itai or Shiri (masculine and feminine first names, respectively) are often embarrassed to find out their names mean 'painful' and 'butt' respectively in Japanese.
• In the same way, if you're Japanese and your last name is Sakamoto, Yamamoto or Ito, get ready for being the butt of all jokes in the Spanish-speaking world, since Sakamoto sounds like saca moto (getting out [your] motorcycle^note "Moto" is short for "motocicleta") and Yamamoto like llama moto (calling your motorcycle). Señor Ito (Mr. Ito) sounds like señorito (a corny Young Master).
  • This is even more funnier for the name of a famous Japanese brand of monosodium glutamate (MSG) named Ajinomoto, since it sounds like Alli No Moto. (Broken Spanish for Don't Park Your Motorcycle There)
    • Ajinomoto is also a common joke in Malaysian Pidgin English. Literally, meaning that the Hajj pilgrim does not own a motorcycle (Haji no motor).
    • Ajinomoto in Malay also sounds like "Haji naik motor", meaning the Hajj pilgrim rides a motorcycle.
  • In fact, Japanese names are an eternal source for cheap laughs in Spanish, due to how many of them can sound like naughty or weird stuff in Spanish. For example, the name of the author of Log Horizon and Maoyu light novels, Mamare Touno. His name in Spanish sounds like Mamaré Todo, as in (I will) suck everything.
  • A few female Japanese names has also this effect, like Rie (to laugh), Risa (laugh), Maya (as the Mayans, the ancient Mesoamerican tribe. It's also a proper name in some Western countries as well), Nako (Mexican slang for a male hillbilly), any name ending or beginning with either Kago or Kaga (I shit and (s)he shits, respectively), etc.
  • And if you're Japanese and your last name is Asō (or Asou/Asoh), expect more than a few raised eyebrows in The Netherlands; Aso is a Dutch slang term for a rude, antisocial person.
  • For Mexican Spanish speakers, the name of Gachapin, a character from a children's show named Hirake! Ponkikki, could sound potentially offensive there, as it sounds disturbingly similar to the racial insult "gachupín", normally used to describe a Spaniard in a very offensive way.
• In Hebrew, "Thank you very much" is translated as "Toda Raba". For Japanese speakers, the whole expression would sound funny, since "Toda" is also a valid Japanese surname, making some names, such as Japanese voice actress Keiko Toda, sound funny for Hebrew speakers, especially when spelled using the Asian order, since it would sound like saying "Thank you, Keiko" in Hebrew, and "Keiko, thank you" when using her name in the western order.
  • The Japanese word for "fish" is sakana. In Hebrew, this means "danger".
• The former Prime Minister of Finland, Esko Aho, would have had problems with his surname both in Spain and in Japan. While aho means "meadow" in Finnish, it would mean "garlic" (ajo, pronounced a-ho) in Spanish, and "idiot" in Japanese.^note In Japanese's case, it only means that in certain dialects.
• In Japanese, the word for "day-care worker in a kindergarten, nursery school, etc." is pronounced "Hobo" (保母), which is not exactly a type of person an American would want watching their little ones.^note It's read like the starts of "hole" and "ball" (in that order) though, so while it can be written that way in romaji, it's actually not that funny.
• In Tiberias, Israel, there's a inn named Maman Mansion. Maman is the Japanese slang equivalent of the phrase MILF.
• The Japanese city of Kagoshima sounds pretty hilarious in Italian (something like "I shit-shima"); then there's Yokosuka, which looks like "Yoko sucks it / Yoko blows" (only in written form: the "u" in its name is actually silent in Japanese).
• Many Japanese questions end with "desu ka" which sounds like Polish "deska" (wooden board but also a term used to describe someone who is flat-chested).
• The last name of the Nigerian soccer players (and also brothers) Celestine and Emmanuel Babayaro could sound extremely hilarious for Japanese speakers: It sounds similar to bakayarou, which means "dumbass." It also sounds like babaayarou, translated as "old hag bitch."
• Also involving another player of African origin, there's French player Tiémoué Bakayoko, whose surname means "stupid Yoko" in Japanese.
• "Kimi" is a Finnish male first name. It's also one of many words in Japanese for "you". As well, "hei" is either "hello" in Finnish, or the English word "hey" written in Japanese phonetics. So "Hei, Kimi" can mean either "Hello, Kimi" or "Hey, you".
• "Hai" means "yes," "lungs," and several other things in Japanese, but means "shark" in German and Norwegian.
• A few Japanese words are English loanwords, but mean something slightly different.
  • The Japanese word "manshon" comes from the English word "mansion", but means "apartment complex".
  • A "kaminguauto" (coming-out) is a confession of any kind.
• Other English loanwords mean the same thing, but sound like something else when said in Japanese.
  • Japanese for "cook" is "kokku", which sounds like "cock".
  • Many of these are due to Japanese lacking an 'L' sound, and so they approximate it with a sound that is actually closer to our 'R':
    • Their word for "collection" comes out sounding more like "correction" (korekushon).
    • "Kurēmu" means claim (as in insurance claim), not cream.
  • And sometimes native and borrowed words are combined in a way that can cause confusion. For example, "burashi" means "brush". But since "tooth" in Japanese is "ha", their word for "toothbrush" is "haburashi", which sounds like "hairbrush".
• Then there's words which sound similar and have similar meanings, but are in fact etymologically unrelated. This can sometimes make for some Incidental Multilingual Wordplay.
  • Emoji, contrary to popular belief, is not a Japanization of emoticon, but instead literally means "pictograph".
  • "Namae" means name (literally, "forename"). The word for "name" is similar to this in most Indo-European languages (including, of course, English), but this is coincidental. The Okinawan form of namae is name, but it's completely unrelated to the English word.
  • "Sō" means "so", as in "the case". For example, "sō desu" is a common interjection to express agreement or confirmation, which is easy for English-speaking students of Japanese to remember as it literally means "it is so".
  • The infamous Fartillery-heavy Edo period art scroll is, ironically, titled "He gassen", which literally means "fart competition".
• In Japanese, the common Irish expression Sin é ("That's it" or "That's how it is") sounds like Shine, i.e. ordering someone to die.
• In Japanese, "shi" is a syllable commonly found in words (and a word on its own, meaning — depending on the kanji used — "four" or "death"). It happens to sound like the English word "she". And unfortunately for English speakers, it is often followed by a syllable beginning with "t"...
  • Japanese also has the syllables "mi", "hi" and "yu", which sound like "me", "he" and "you". Unlike in Chinese, these aren't names on their own, so Who's on First? is rarer than you might expect.^note Well, the exception to this is "Yu", which is more commonly written as "Yuu" in Romanized Japanese.
  • In Korean, "ai" (아이) means "child". In Japanese, "ai" (愛) means "love". And both sound like the English word "I". And to further complicate matters, in Hokkien Chinese, it means "want" (要), but depending on the context it can also mean "love".
• One reason behind Kit-Kat's big success in Japan is the fact that "Kit Kat" sounds a lot like the phrase "Kitto-Katsu", which translated literally means "You will surely win", which explains why the said chocolate gets a boost on sales during exams in the country.
• A Japanese to Hawaiian example: those who watch enough Lilo & Stitch would know that "ohana" means family. In Japanese, the o part of the word basically holds no distinction and the word "Hana" means "flower". This is aggravated if one is listening to the opening theme of the 2007 Sylvanian Families OVAs, in which said word appears, when not knowing Japanese well or at all; one would assume the verse of the song is talking about the families when it is basically talking about flowers.
  • Lilo's sister Nani has a name that means "beautiful one" in Hawaiian, but is also the word for "what?" in Japanese.
• Another Japanese example this time to English: "Ippai" basically means "full". In English, it sounds like "Eat pie". So the opening theme of Chibi Maruko-chan, "Yume Ippai" (lit. "full of dreams"), is often misheard as "you, me, eat pie" or "You may eat pie".
• There's a Mexican movie director named Hari Sama, whose name is pretty funny in Japanese, since it could be translated as "Lord Needle" (針様).
• The name of Germany in the Czech language is "Německo". In Japanese, while pronounced phonetically and without diacritics, the word sounds the same as the word "nemeko" (睨め子) which means "glaring child".
• Japanese garō (hungry wolf) is a false cognate with French garou (werewolf).
• Yaoi (Japanese for homoerotic media) sounds like an exclamation of pain in English such as someone might say after lightly stubbing a toe, and is pronounced the same as "yowie," an Australian mythical creature or cryptid of the Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti variety.
• The Gambian name Saikou ("serene child") and the Japanese word saikou ("supreme") are both homophonic with the English slang psycho ("crazy").
• "Shun" is a perfectly good name in both Chinese (pronounced something like "shwun") and Japanese (pronounced "shoon"). It looks exactly like the English word "shun" (to avoid).
• "Kun" is both a Japanese honorific (pronounced "koon") and a Chinese name (pronounced "kwun"). The Japanese pronunciation happens to sound like a certain racist slur in English, causing at least one incident where an American tourist got the completely wrong impression...
• "Edo" in Japanese is both a former name for Tokyo and a historical era. "Edo" in other languages, including Georgian and Croatian, is a shortened form of the male name Eduard.
• "Shōta" (pronounced "show-ta", also transliterated Shota and Shouta) is a Japanese name. "Shota" (pronounced "shaw-ta", also transliterated Šota) is a Georgian name.
• "Sharyō" (train carriage) is homophonic with the French word "chariot". Sadly "chariot" isn't the term used in French for "train carriage". It also doesn't mean quite the same thing as the English word — it's a cart (as in horse and cart, or shopping cart), rather than the vessel people in antiquity would have ridden into battle. The French and Japanese words can however both be translated into English as "trolley", though of different varieties.
• Another name for the Kansai region of Japan where Kyoto and Osaka are located is the Kinki region, pronounced exactly like "kinky". Pikamee Amano had some laughs at the coincidence. The formerly-Kinki University changed its English name to Kindai University in 2016 specifically to be taken more seriously as it sought to attract more international presence.
  • Hilariously, to a Hokkien Chinese speaker, Kansai also brings about mental images of coprophilia, as the phrase literally means to make love with excretions ("Kan" = to copulate, "Sai" = excretion).
• Naomi Osaka and LeBron James announced that they would be starting a media company called Hana Kuma ("flower bear" in Japanese), but it was pointed out to them that in Swahili this means "a woman with no vagina".
• The Japanese words "ningen" (human) and "nigero" (run away, escape, retreat) sound vaguely like the N-word in English. This has led to quite a few misunderstandings in online gaming.
• In Japanese, "haha" means "mother." In English, "Haha!" is what you say when you laugh.
• The Heian period in Japanese history. In Japanese, "Heian" means peace. In Mandarin, "Heian" means "darkness".
• In Korean "kaka" (까까) is a child's way of saying "snacks". In Japanese kakka (閣下) is a suffix meaning "Your/His/Her Excellency", while kakka written in hiragana (かっか) means both "to burn hotly" and "to lose your temper". And in Italian, caca means "to shit".
• kita (来た) in Japanese means "came". (As in, arrived somewhere. "come" in Japanese doesn't have a double meaning attached to it.) kita in Serbian means "dick". kita in Malay and Indonesian means "we/our/ours". 'kita" in Filipino also means "profit/salary" (the last word if its the speaker talking about their paycheck), but also "see" in some contexts (i.e. "Kita mo yan?" (You see that?)). Aaaand kita in Finnish means "mouth".
• "nya" in Japanese is the sound that cats make. "-nya" in Korean is a suffix used when the speaker is rudely asking a question to someone their own age or younger. This means that a Korean speaker could be trying to be rude, but to their Japanese listeners it sounds like they randomly started meowing or trying to be cute, as girls in Japan are known to suffix phrases with “-nya” when they’re talking to someone they’re close with.
• "Haruka" is a female Japanese first name. In Finnish, "haarukka"’ means fork.
• "Debu" in Japanese means fat. A "Debut" (Pronounced the same was as the Japanese "Debu") in Filipino English is a grand celebration when a girl turns eighteen, similar to a Quincenera or a Sweet Sixteen.

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