Japanese word-play sentences

Japanese Language
1

Hi all!

I came across this sentence today while studying :

庭には2羽にわとりがいます。
(にわ に は に わ にわとり が います。)

(There are 2 chickens in the garden.)

I thought it was fun to translate. I’m sure there are plenty of other Japanese word-play sentences like this. If you know of any, please share them! And if you’re going to provide the translation, please put it in spoiler tags so we can try to translate on our own first.

6 Likes
2

They made us say/learn that sentence in Japanese language school. basically laughing at their own language. nothing to add, just wanted to share

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3

I’m not good enough with grammar yet, but someone translate “Don’t run on the edge of the bridge with chopsticks.”

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4

橋の端で箸と走るな。

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5

I have one that is more of a tongue twister

坊主が屏風に上手に坊主の絵を描いた。

ぼうずがびょうぶにじょうずにぼうずのえをかいた。

Which means

The monk painted another monk on the folding screen very well.

1 Like
6

Pssst. Spoiler tag over the translation. :slight_smile:

7

The version someone on HelloTalk tried on me was:

はしのはしをはさみではさみあめのあめのなかはしのはしをはしった。

Slightly better with kanji:

箸の端をハサミで挟み、飴の雨の中橋の端を走った。

1 Like
8

Thanks. I like this one even better!

James Knowles

9

I found this site

there’s a navigation bar down the bottom, i found this site because i was looking for palindromes in japanese (回文）
EG. 竹屋が焼けた (たけやがやけた)

(I was about to start a new thread, but it told me it was too similar to this topic, and when i go to post in this topic it says 'are you sure you want to revive this topic '-_- i can’t win)

I then started looking for pun articles, and tofugu has one!

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