1. 自業自得
“One’s act, one’s profit.”
Equivalent to “you reap what you sow,” this one rings way more timelessly as few are sowing these days.
2. 十人十色
“Ten men, ten colors.”
Aka, “different strokes for different folks” — I prefer the image of colors to the image of folks getting stroked.
3. 起死回生
“Wake from death and return to life.”
Meaning “to turn a bad or desperate situation into a success,” this truly underscores just how dire some bad situations feel sometimes.
4. 我田引水
“Pulling water to my own rice paddy.”
“Doing or saying things for one’s own benefit.” While totally regionally charged, I feel like dropping this one would give you an air of well-traveled-ness.
5. 悪因悪果
“Evil cause, evil effect.”
Another “you reap what you sow,” this one is a tad more specific, and almost suggests a karmic outcome.
6. 見ぬが花
“Not seeing is a flower.”
I love the fact that the Japanese use “flower” to describe imagination, beauty, and sometimes pointlessness. In this case, “reality cannot compete with imagination.”
7. 弱肉強食
“The weak are meat; the strong eat.”
“Survival of the fittest” — I like eating meat so this was always going to appeal to me, and it rhymes.
8. 海千山千
“Ocean thousand mountain thousand.”
A reference to a “sly old fox,” someone who has been through everything and seen everything and can therefore handle any situation, usually through cunning. A thousand oceans, a thousand mountains, an ultimate badass.
9. 酔生夢死
“Drunken life, dreamy death.”
Meaning to dream one’s life away, or spending all one’s time dreaming without accomplishing anything significant…at least this one seems to make light of the situation.
10. 一期一会
“One life, one encounter.”
Every encounter is a once-in-a-lifetime encounter — this really underscores how many first-and-only-time things happen in the day-to-day.
11. 異体同心
“Different body, same mind.”
Harmony of mind between two people — this one is a bit more literal, and a hair creepy, but I love it all the same. Sort of like “brother from another mother.”
12. 羊頭狗肉
“Sheep head, dog meat.”
Meaning false advertising, or “crying wine and selling vinegar,” the image this one paints is more graphic, and therefore more powerful.
13. 会者定離
“Meeting person always separated.”
Possibly the most “Confucius”-esque of the bunch, this one simply means “every meeting must end in parting.”
14. 美人薄命
“Beautiful person, thin life.”
More superstition than anything else, this one really means “a beautiful woman is destined to die young,” but is probably analogous to “beauty fades.”
15. 自業自得
“Work of self, obtainment of self.”
“You get what you give,” but this one sounds way more fulfilling. Perhaps it’s the use of the word “self”; “you get what you give” feels like an exchange, where as “work of self, obtainment of self” feels more like your work is its own soul-reward.
Other idiomatic phrases that relate to English idioms or proverbs:
16. 虎穴に入らずんば虎子を得ず。
“If you do not enter the tiger’s cave, you will not catch its cub.”
Nothing ventured, nothing gained…but from now on everything I’m venturing to gain shall be considered a tiger’s cub.
17. 猿も木から落ちる。
“Even monkeys fall from trees.”
A considerably more hilarious way to say “everybody makes mistakes.”
18. 蓼食う虫も好き好き
“There are even bugs that eat knotweed.”
A roundabout way to say “there’s no accounting for taste / to each his own,” plus you get to say “knotweed” (of course, referring to Japanese knotweed, one of the world’s worst invasive species).
19. 蛙の子は蛙。
“Child of a frog is a frog.”
“Like father, like son,” but not so human-centric.
20. 覆水盆に帰らず。
“Spilt water will not return to the tray.”
I like this way of saying “no use crying over spilled milk,” mainly because water seems way less significant a loss than milk.
©rickster70
R