Monday, June 25, 2007

My boyfriend has a wide face



There are a lot of idioms using a part of the body.
Today, I’m introducing you some idioms with “face”.
Face is "顔 (kao)" in Japanese.


① 顔が広い (kao ga hiroi)

"The face is wide."

This means...
"to know a lot of people having different background."


「彼は顔が広いから、いい人を紹介してくれると思うよ。」

(kare wa kao ga hiroi kara iihito o shookai shitekureru to omouyo)


"I think he will introduce you someone nice as he knows a lot of different people."



② 顔に書いてある (kao ni kaitearu)

“something is written on your face”

This means…
“Your face is expressing your feeling. I know what you are thinking in your heart.”


「パーティー行きたくないって顔に書いてあるよ。本当に行くの?」
(patti ikitakunai tte kaoni kaitearuyo. hontooni ikuno?)

“Your face is saying “I don’t want to go to the party!”. Are you really going to the party?”


③ 顔に泥をぬる (kao ni doro o nuru)

“to apply (paint) mud on someone’s face”


This means…
“to loose someone’s face”


「お客さんの前で飲みすぎて、上司の顔に泥をぬってしまった・・・」

(okyakusan no mae de nomisugite jooshi no kao ni doro o nutteshimatta…)

“I drank too much in front of our clients and I lost my boss’s face…”



When I was checking my dictionary for this blog, I noticed something.
Both in Japanese and English, “face” means “honor” and ”mood”, too. Interesting!
Do you know about other language?
What kind of expression using "face" do you have in your language?

2 comments:

  1. Akiko-san,

    I learnt only the first one but not the other two. Thanks for enriching my knowledge on idioms using face. :)

    There're a few common idioms using face in English too. For example,

    1. "to put on a brave face" which means to pretend that you feel confident and at ease when you, in fact, do not.

    2. "face the music" means to accept and deal with criticism or punishment for something one's done.

    3. "cut off your nose to spite your face" means to do something harmful to others but which in turn also harms you.

    4. "to show your face" means to make an appearance.

    Others such as "to lose face", "to save face", "to have a straight face", "to pull a long face" are common phrases prevalently used.

    Talk to you again!

    Have a nice day ahead!

    ReplyDelete
  2. wow, quite interesting post this time!
    I've learned something new today...

    thank you!

    ReplyDelete