なぞなぞ

Do you study Japanese?

Japanese なぞなぞ (riddles) are a helpful study tool. The play on words in children’s riddles help expand your vocabulary.

If you don’t understand Japanese, these riddles will probably be difficult to understand because riddles in any language aren’t easy to translate to another language (since riddles usually incorporate a play on words, and different languages don’t often have similar wordplay).

Anyways, probably the most common Japanese riddle:

「パンはパンでも食べられないパンは、なぁに？」
答え:「フライパン」

Do you understand it? Have you heard it before? It’s an old joke that everyone in Japan has heard countless times.

Literally, in English it would be:
“Bread is bread but what bread is inedible?”
Answer: “A frying pan.”

See? It doesn’t make sense in English.
But in Japanese, the word for “bread” is “pan”.

Now does it make more sense?

If you write it in English, but use the Japanese word “pan” instead of “bread”:
“Pan is pan but what pan is inedible?”
Answer: “A frying pan.”

Here’s another one:

「トラを食べちゃう車ってなぁに？」
答え： 「トラック」 (とら食う)

“What kind of vehicle eats tigers?”
Answer: “A truck”

Meaningless in English.
But “tiger” is “tora” in Japanese. And “eat” is “taberu“…or sometimes “kuu“.
“Truck” in Japanese is “torakku”, which sounds similar to “Tora Kuu” (Tiger Eat).

If you want to see more Japanese riddles (and you can read Japanese), go to http://なぞなぞ.jp/.

Do you know any Japanese なぞなぞ (riddles)? Write them in this post’s comments section.
Feel free to write English riddles there too.