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The story
On October 2, the Agency for Cultural Affairs released the results of its fiscal 2025 “Public Opinion Survey on the Japanese Language.” A notable share of respondents said they now have fewer chances to write by hand in daily life, and the survey also found that words such as “funpan mono” (lit. “something that makes you spit out your rice laughing,” now often used to mean “outrageous” or “infuriating”) and “nagare ni sao sasu” (lit. “to pole a boat along with the current,” meaning to ride the momentum of the moment, but widely misread as going against it) are spreading with meanings that differ from their original ones. On 5ch, a thread lit up with chatter about the merits of keeping a diary with a fountain pen, other commonly misused words like “shiodoki” (the right time to act, often misused to mean “the time to quit”) and “yakubusoku” (underqualified for a role, often misused to mean the opposite), and firsthand accounts of forgetting how to write kanji — all feeding a lively discussion about how the meanings of words drift over time.
“Everyday Handwriting” at 70% — Meanings of “Funpan” and “Nagare ni Sao” Shifting: National Language Survey, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Jiji.com
Published October 2, 2026, 17:00 JST
On the 2nd, the Agency for Cultural Affairs released the results of its fiscal 2025 “Public Opinion Survey on the Japanese Language.” The survey found that opportunities for handwriting in daily life have declined, and that many people understand words such as “funpan mono” and “nagare ni sao sasu” in a sense different from their original meaning.
Source: jiji.com / Read the original article here
What people said
Way too wasteful
October 2nd
Stomped on the floor. Curry got served and it pissed me off, so I threw it everywhere and yelled, 'Hag! Go buy me a pork cutlet bowl!'
Is that really something you need a fountain pen to write?
That's nice
Like a three-year diary or something?
'This place's food is totally delicious, right!'
What's that supposed to mean?
Don't you have any doubts about that grammar? (using "zenzen," literally "not at all," as a positive intensifier)
You want someone to point out that pairing 'zenzen' with a positive has been around since the Meiji era?
You're not exactly one to talk
'Shiodoki' — the best time to fish, the time to strike
The pen is mightier than the sword
The pen that signs the warrant is mightier than the criminal's sword
You know about AI, right? It'll spit out plenty of options, like 'the difficulty is high'
Isn't 'shikii ga takai' (lit. "the threshold is high," meaning a place feels intimidating to enter) the one that gets misused a lot?
'Hādoru ga takai' is pretty much literal as it is, no?
It depends on usage, I guess — 'hurdle' feels like it covers a surprisingly wide range of meanings.
There should be cases where you could swap it for 'out of reach,' 'can't afford it,' or 'a thick wall,' depending on context
I was stunned that I couldn't write the kanji for 'kawara' (roof tile)
When it comes to handwritten notes, it's all hiragana and katakana except for people's names
Original meaning: the perfect opportunity
Misuse: the time to quit
This is one where I've literally only ever seen the misused version
I've seen it used correctly in a novel before, but the character actually explained the meaning properly lol
My guess: in novels and movies, there's a scene where a woman who's decided to break up with a man says 'Guess it's about time…' (meaning: now she can cut all ties and start a new life), and viewers misread that as a sad, lonely moment of parting.
There's just no occasion to write 'kawara' (tile)
And 'gas' is normally just written in katakana as ガス anyway, not with the kanji 瓦斯
Even as part of a compound word, 'gakai' (collapse) is about the only place you'd use it lol
Brick and rubble get written in katakana too
Though Yamaguchi's 'kawara soba' (roof-tile soba) is written with the kanji…
That stuff is awful enough to kill you
The center of Sakai city is actually called 'Kawaramachi' (Tile Town)
So embarrassing
Nah
that one too,
if you read it as
'towa,'
it comes out the same.
Japanese kanji were never anything more than phonetic stand-ins to begin with.
There were tons of variations.
No, there still are.
It was the Ministry of Education (or its predecessor) that standardized it, only to make it easier to teach for compulsory education.
That's only true within that world.
It's for the Ministry of Education's teaching purposes.
The Ministry of Education has no authority to dictate the Japanese language.
Sounds like something Shigeo Nagashima would say
Back then, a 'jokyū' would be the equivalent of today's cabaret-club hostess.
That's exactly why the term 'junkissa' (lit. "pure café," a coffee shop with no alcohol or hostesses) came to exist
That's a correct read on the history.
A 'kafē' was shady,
so by association 'kissa' (café) seemed shady too,
and to signal 'this is not a shady place,'
some put up signs reading 'junkissa' instead.
For what it's worth, there were even places where the waitress paid the shop a space fee and then negotiated prostitution with customers herself
I once gave the order 'rewrite this into plain Japanese, your own interpretation is fine,' and even though it was the same source text, I was speechless at how every single report came back completely different lol
Text where communication gets massively skewed like that is dangerous lol — that's not even in the same league as a simple editing slip lol
Katakana has nothing to do with it.
Kanji itself was originally just phonetic borrowing.
Katakana is that same practice applied to Western things.
Anyone who doesn't get that kanji and katakana work the same way just doesn't get it
Stuff like dropping in 'agree' mid-sentence, Rū Ōshiba-style, is irritating though (Rū Ōshiba is a comedian known for randomly mixing English words into Japanese)
That's exactly why it got the meaning across.
It's not a misuse at all.
If it communicates, it's correct
Gundam has also used 'omei bankai' before (a misuse of 'clearing one's name'), and it's also partly responsible for spreading the misuse of 'apogee motor' as well
Background and Key Points of This Topic
The “Public Opinion Survey on the Japanese Language” is conducted annually by the Agency for Cultural Affairs to track how word usage changes over time. In past years it has published the share of respondents who picked the correct meaning for terms such as “yakubusoku” (originally meaning a role is too modest for one’s ability, but often misused to mean lacking the ability for a role) and “nagare ni sao sasu” (where “sao,” a pole, is a tool for propelling a boat forward — originally meaning to ride the momentum of the moment, but often misunderstood as going against it). In the thread, where to draw the line between a misuse and a new usage that has simply become accepted was a point of debate, with both the view that “if it’s understood, it’s correct” and the view that the original meaning should be preserved represented. On the decline in handwriting, many pointed to typing on computers and smartphones having become the everyday norm, and the flood of personal anecdotes about forgetting how to write simple kanji reflected that reality.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “[Japanese Language] “Everyday Handwriting” at 70% — Meanings of “Funpan” and “Nagare ni Sao” Shifting: National Language Survey, Agency for Cultural Affairs.”
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