Category Archives: Word Origins

Japanese expression “〜なくてすむ” (~nakute sumu)

In this post I’d like to go over the Japanese expression “~nakute sumu” which is used fairly commonly in everyday speech. First, let’s look at an example sentence: 傘を持っていけば濡れなくてすむ。 (kasa wo motte ikeba nurenakute sumu.) すむ can sometimes mean “to live or inhabit” (住む), but from context here we know it has a different meaning,… Read More »

Why is grass (草) used in Japanese to mean something is funny?

The interaction between languages over time can be interesting to follow. Words get imported from one language into another, and meaning often changes, from subtle to drastic ways. New words can even be formed using a composite of words from two languages. For various historical reasons, in the last few decades the Japanese language has… Read More »