This saying is akin to something like “Better to be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion” in English.  While I don’t agree with the “don’t be too ambitious” slant of the saying at all, it’s still pretty cool.  Plus, there are the names of two fish in there, so hey… free vocab!

Note also that 頭, which is often pronounced あたま is, in this case, read かしら.

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苦あれば楽あり

苦 has a variety of meanings, but all tend to fall into the area of bitterness/hardship/suffering.  あれば simply means “if exists” or “if (one) has.”  楽 is often used when describing music (e.g. 音楽) but also has connotations of fun, ease, or comfort.  All this taken together, the phrase really means something more like “if you struggle through bitter hardship, you will have ease.”

There’s a flavor (pardon the pun) to this that, in my opinion, isn’t quite there in either of the aforementioned English versions.  “Every cloud has a silver lining” seems to be too fairytale-ish and passive for me, and “no pain, no gain” doesn’t really talk about what the “pain” is.  I mean, you can hit yourself in the face with an ice pick repeatedly and cause pain, while experiencing no demonstrable “gain.”

A related phrase is 苦は楽の種 [くはらくのたね] or “bitterness is the seed of ease.”

If you’ve been studying Japanese for a while, you might be familiar with CM [commercial], H [Hentai], NG [No Good], GW [Golden Week], or BGM [BackGround Music].  I thought I’d share a few more with y’all.

• JK – 女子高生 [じょしこうせい] – “high school girl”
• JD – 女子大生 [じょしだいせい] – “college girl”
• KY – 空気読めない [くうきよめない] – someone who can’t read the situation (lit. “can’t read the air”

Here are some other fun ones that I found online:

• JY - 状況読めない [じょうきょうよめない] – (see KY)
• IT - アイス、食べたい！ – I want to eat ice cream!
• HR - 一人ランチ – lunch for one
• CZ - チャクラ全開 – someone’s zipper is wide open
• SBN – そんな馬鹿な – such a stupid…
• DSY – 大親友 [だいしんゆう] – similar to BFF in English.
• MHS - マジで・本当に・死んでしまいたい – so desperate, one wants to die

Should you want to investigate some of these newly-coined Japanese words–as long as your Japanese is pretty solid–please check out gengoya.com.

陰口 [かげぐち] – gossip; talking about someone behind their back

• 陰 [イン・かげ] – shade; shadow; secret; yin
• 口 [コウ・くち] – mouth

If you have a secret, shady mouth, you might be talking about people behind their backs.

You’ve like already seen 陰 in the form 陰陽.  In Japanese, it is pronounced いんよう, but you’re probably more likely to recognize it as it’s read in Chinese: Yin/Yang.

• 辰 [シン・たつ] – sign of the dragon
• 年 [ネン・とし] – year

Happy 2012 from nihongo à gogo!

• 認 [ニン] – acknowledge; recognize
• 知 [チ・しる] – know; wisdom
• 症 [ショウ] – illness

• 偽 [にせ] – false; counterfeit; fake
• 旗 [はた] – flag
• 作戦 [さくせん] – strategy
• 作 [さく・つくる] – to make; to build
• 戦 [せん・いくさ] – war; battle

The phrase “False Flag” refers to a covert action, often of a military nature, that is designed to deceive the public into thinking that the action was taken by another country or party.  It comes from the military concept of raising a flag other than one’s own to deceive the enemy.  (偽旗 is a literal translation of “False Flag.”)

• 乾 [カン] – heaven (also means dry, drought)
• 坤 [コン] – earth
• 一 [いち] – one
• 擲 [テキ] – resign

乾坤 [けんこん] – heaven and earth; universe

一擲 [いってき] – cast off