Giving Your All

A curious idiom this:

粉骨砕身 - ふんこつさいしん

粉 FUN ko/kona = powder

骨 KOTSU hone = bone

砕 SAI kuda・ku/kuda・keru - smash, crush, shatter, break into pieces

身 SHIN mi = one's body, one's person

So what we have here is an image of one's bones being ground down into powder and one's body being smashed to pieces. It's a very graphic way of expressing the idea of giving one's all and it means to do one's best or exert oneself to the limit. I suppose a similar (American) expression would be to bust one's ass. You can read a poetic variant of 粉骨砕身 here.

Hard times - and then some!

A co-worker who has recently suffered a succession of disappointments recently said "It never rains but it pours". In Japanese you can express this idiom like this:

泣きっ面に蜂 (nakittsura ni hachi)

泣く - なく - to cry
面 - つら - a face
蜂 - はち - a hornet, wasp or bee

So you could say literally: a hornet in a crying face. In other words, just when you thought things were going badly - ouch!

However, the following expression may help one to bear up through difficult times:

継続は力なり (keizoku ha chikara nari)

継続 - きいぞく - continuation
力 - ちから - strength

In other words perseverance (through difficult times) makes you strong.

Like leaping from Kiyomizu Temple

Kiyomizu Temple is all lit up at this time of year so that people can enjoy night views of the 紅葉 (momiji - autumn leaves). I went along last night and learnt this expression:

清水の舞台から飛び降りる - きよみずのぶたいからとびおりる = literally to leap from the platform of Kiyomizu Temple. It's pretty high up, so to resolve to leap from such a great height would require a lot of courage. Hence the meaning of this expression is to leap into the dark; to take the plunge; to jump in at the deep end.

Like the desert needs the rain...

So yesterday, when I expressed delight at learning the new phrase 「風邪は万病の元」, my friend replied: マイケルは新しい言葉を「砂が水を吸うように」覚えていくなぁー。

Bingo! There's another one right there! maikeru ha atarashii kotoba wo "suna ga mizu wo suu you ni" oboete iku na- You are remembering new words like the sand soaks up water, aren't you?

砂が水を吸うように = literally to absorb something like sand, but perhaps we would be more likely to say like a sponge.

My dictionary has this example:
彼女はまるで砂地が水を吸うように知識を吸収した。
kanojo ha marude sunachi ga mizu wo suu you ni chishiki wo kyuushuu shita.
She absorbed knowledge just like a sponge.

The variant being 砂地 or sandy soil. I'm told that either is ok.

10,000 ills...

So, what with the sudden change of weather, I have been the victim of a sudden cold recently; a wearisome sniffly cold. The kind that makes your head hot and your legs wobbly and keeps you in bed and away from work. So, today I went back to work and still felt kind of woozy and wobbly (though the sniffling had stopped. And then someone asked me - 風邪はもぉ治ったん？ (kaze ha moo naottan? - Is your cold all better now?). Well, I'm not sure, I said. 鼻水が治ったけど、まだちょっとくらくらしている。(hanamizu ga naotta kedo, mada chotto kurakura shiteiru - The sniffles have stopped but I still feel a little dizzy.) Ah, said she. でも　「風邪は万病の元」やから気ィ付けてねぇー (demo, "kaze ha manbyou no moto" yakara ki tsukete ne - but "a cold is a source of 10,000 ills" so be careful, won't you?)

That's today's phrase right there: 万病の元. I translated it rather literally though. In effect 万病 means all kinds of diseases. So 万病の薬 (manbyou no kusuri) would be a cure all. However, it is most commonly used in the expression quoted above to mean that a cold can lead to all kinds of health problems. Here is variant I found in Jim Breen's Dictionary:

アンバランスな食事は、万病の元だぞ。
anbaransuna shokuji ha manbyou no moto da zo.
An unbalanced diet leads to all kinds of sicknesses.

A Fox Wedding

There was a heavy downpour yesterday, and then though the rain continued to fall, the sun broke through the clouds and it became a sun shower. My girlfriend reminded me of the Japanese expression for this: 狐の嫁入り (kitune no yome iri) literally a fox's bridal procession. A curious expression, isn't it? Foxes, in Japanese legends and folktales are often beings of magical ability; tricksters and shapeshifters, able to assume human (often feminine) form and fool or seduce unsuspecting mortals. Why a sun shower should be known as a fox's wedding, I'm not sure. Apparently there is a folktale about someone unwittingly stumbling on a fox's bridal procession during a sun shower but I've not been able to track the story down any further than oblique references. However, clearly there is a sense of paradox and confusion when rain falls in the sunshine, the kind of paradox and confusion that magical beings like foxes enjoy. Anyway, it's a nice expression, and I like foxes so I think I might post some more 狐 expressions over the next couple of days.

Shins

Here's an interesting expression one of my student's taught me. Earlier this year, I was asking her what she thought of her new home room teacher. He seems like a genial chap so I thought she might like him:

"He's always smiling isn't he?" I said.
"Isn't he though!" says she, "I don't know what he has to be smiling about! He's in his late 30s and he's still すねかじり!"

Let's look at the kanji for that shall we:

脛　ー　すね means "shin"
齧る　－　かじる means "to gnaw"

Literally it means to gnaw at someone's shins, but idiomatically to sponge off someone, usually one's parents. Another oft-used word for this is パラサイトシングル or "parasite single" - somebody unmarried and still living with and sponging off their parents. Obviously, this particular student doesn't have a high opinion of her teacher.

There's one other use of the word 脛 idiomatically that is of interest:

脛に傷持つ　－　すねにきずもつ　－　to have a guilty consience or a shady past. Here's a nice example off of Jim Breen's web-dictionary.

すねにきずもつ者は他人の批評などしないほうがよい。
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

魚 #1

The Japanese consume an incredibly wide variety of fish. There are many kinds of fish I've had here that I have never tried anywhere else. In fact I'm often more familiar with the Japanese names for fish than I am the English. Time to rectify that. Here are a few varieties I ate just last night!

秋刀魚　- SANMA - saury. Note the kanji "Autumn/Blade/Fish". This fish is typically eaten in the autumn.

鱧　- HAMO - sea eel not to be confused with 鰻 (eel) though both are typically eaten in the summer. If you break up the kanji for 鱧 into its component parts you get さかな + ゆたか (豊) which means abundant or rich. The component parts for うなぎ (eel) are さかな +　まん / ばん / ながい (曼) which can mean wide or beautiful. This kanji is often found in Buddhist words such as 曼陀羅 - mandala.

鮪 - MAGURO - fine cuts of tuna. The kanji components here are さかな + ゆう / あ・る - to have or possess.

This next one I didn't eat last night but it has a curious idiom attached to it so I shall include it anyway:

鯖 - SABA - mackerel. Kanji components: さかな + あお - blue.

鯖を読む - SABA WO YOMU - to cheat or to lie. For example:

彼女は年を教えるのに鯖を読んだ。　~ She lied about her age.

Now I wonder how that idiom came about?