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Goroawase
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Introduction
Goroawase (語呂合わせ) is a Japanese wordplay where series of symbols1, often numbers are associated with words based on their same spelling. It sounds harder than it really is, let's look at the example: 4649 which can mean よろしく. Let's break this down, each number was given a reading: 4 → よ, 6 → ろ, 4 → し, 9 → く. As we can see 4 was assigned two different spellings. It is because each number can have multiple different readings.
Goroawase table
| Number (kanji) | Onyomi | Kunyomi | Other |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 (零) | れい, れ | - | ゼロ, まる, ま、ない |
| 1 (一) | いち, い | ひとつ、ひと, ひ | あい、ぼう |
| 2 (二) | に | ふたつ、ふた、ふ、じ | つ |
| 3 (三) | さん, さ | みっつ, みつ, み | - |
| 4 (四) | し | よん、よっつ、よ | ふぉ, ほ |
| 5 (五) | ご, こ | いつつ、いつ | う |
| 6 (六) | ろく、ろ | むっつ、むつ、む | - |
| 7 (七) | しち | なな、ななつ、な | - |
| 8 (八) | はち, は, ば | やっつ、やつ、や | - |
| 9 (九) | きゅう, く | ここのつ、ここの、こ | - |
The table shows some possible readings. Numbers readings are mostly derived from onyomi and kunyomi readings of kanji. They can also come from English words (zero ゼロ two つ four ふぉ ほ), shape (ぼう pole あい English I) or even chinese reading (う). Bigger numbers (like 10) can also be assigned a reading (じゅう, と ).
Now after learnig how they are created let's see some examples of goroawase!
Examples
- 4 し (死) death
- 648 虫歯 (むしば) cavity
- 888... パチパチパチ... clap clap clap...
- 893 やくざ yakuza
- 18782 いやなやつ (嫌な奴) unpleasant guy
- 18782 + 18782 = 37564 みなごろし (皆殺し) two unpleasant guys = let's kill everyone!
Ok now we know some examples of goroawase, the question is where are they used?
Use cases
- Dates: 1/5 いちご (イチゴ) is a strawberry day, 3/3 みみ (耳) an ear day, 2/10 にと (ニート) a NEET day...
- Phone numbers: Dentists often go for a phone number that includes 6480 むしばゼロ (虫歯ゼロ) meaning zero cavities
- Number Plates: x459 しこく (四国) 4580 よこはま (横浜)
- Mnemonics for numbers like historical dates: 1492 (Columbus discovery of America) can be written as い-よこのくに (いいよこの国) meaning I like this country.
- To avoid ban or NG filter in chat: ４ね しね (死ね) meaning die!, 56すぞ (殺すぞ) I will kill you!
Now knowing where to look for you won't stop seeing them!
If you want to learn more about goroawase checkout links below:
Learn more
- Goroawase dates
- Goroawase mnemonics
- Goroawase phone numbers: 1, 2 (Also title image source)
- Goroawase generators: 1, 2
Footnotes
In this article I focus on numbers but goroawase can be used with any symbols. For example KitKat can be associated with きっとかつ meaning "will for sure win" so it can be given as a present before exam for good luck ↩