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
3AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:28
Being the intellectual that I am, I recently started keeping a diary with a fountain pen
37AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:41
Re: #3
Way too wasteful
55AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:45
Re: #3
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?
85AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:56
Re: #3
That's nice
Like a three-year diary or something?
8AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:30
Gen Z is garbage
'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)
26AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:38
Re: #8
You want someone to point out that pairing 'zenzen' with a positive has been around since the Meiji era?
196AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:36
Re: #8
You're not exactly one to talk
10AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:30
Will the day come when misusing 'subekaraku' (lit. "without exception," often mistaken for "all/everything") and 'yakubusoku' (lit. "underqualified for the role," often mistaken for "not up to the task") is accepted too?
29AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:39
Re: #10
'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
42AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:42
Tell me an idiom that fits well in place of 'the hurdle is high' (hādoru ga takai)
57AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:46
Re: #42
You know about AI, right? It'll spit out plenty of options, like 'the difficulty is high'
65AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:49
Re: #42
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?
77AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:53
Re: #42
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
49AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:44
I write by hand maybe once every three months, and I'm starting to forget how to write even simple kanji lol
58AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:46
Re: #49
I was stunned that I couldn't write the kanji for 'kawara' (roof tile)
59AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:46
Re: #49
When it comes to handwritten notes, it's all hiragana and katakana except for people's names
76AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:53
'Shiodoki'
Original meaning: the perfect opportunity
Misuse: the time to quit
This is one where I've literally only ever seen the misused version
81AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:54
Re: #76
I've seen it used correctly in a novel before, but the character actually explained the meaning properly lol
201AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:39
Re: #76
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.
82AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:55
Re: #58
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
92AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:57
Re: #82
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…
98AnonymousOct 2, 2026 17:59
Re: #92
That stuff is awful enough to kill you
102AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:00
Re: #92
The center of Sakai city is actually called 'Kawaramachi' (Tile Town)
119AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:06
I mixed up 'eikyuu' and 'eien' (both mean "eternity/forever" but are written with different kanji)
So embarrassing
137AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:17
Re: #119
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.
138AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:18
Re: #119
Sounds like something Shigeo Nagashima would say
143AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:20
The 'kafē' of the early Showa era were adult-entertainment bars where 'jokyū' (waitresses) served customers and poured alcohol.
Back then, a 'jokyū' would be the equivalent of today's cabaret-club hostess.
149AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:21
Re: #143
That's exactly why the term 'junkissa' (lit. "pure café," a coffee shop with no alcohol or hostesses) came to exist
150AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:21
Re: #143
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.
160AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:24
Re: #143
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
159AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:24
More than that, we should really do something about these bizarre katakana loanwords.
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
166AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:25
Re: #159
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
170AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:28
Re: #159
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)
179AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:30
'Shiodoki, huh…' — there's a scene in Gundam Unicorn where Char's ghost mutters that, but is that a misuse? It's clearly being used to mean 'time to quit'
184AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:32
Re: #179
That's exactly why it got the meaning across.
It's not a misuse at all.
If it communicates, it's correct
198AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:37
Re: #179
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
180AnonymousOct 2, 2026 18:30
'Keiteki o narasu' (sounding a horn/whistle) sounds kind of dumb
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.”
