Japanese 空耳 “Soramimi” Net-Humor Explained

Posted on 26. Nov, 2009 @ 10:15 am by in Humor, Language Views: 1,906

Time to explain a bit of crazy Japanese Internet humor…

Go ahead, watch the entire video. I’ll wait.

Done? Okay.

There’s an entire category of Japanese humor that is based on adding Japanese subtitles to videos in foreign languages to show that the foreign language actually sounds like ridiculous Japanese. Hilarity ensues.

The Japanese call this 空耳 (そらみみ/soramimi) and there is even an entire 空耳 Wikipedia page explaining the phenomenon.

Japanese Maiahi

See, this is funny because the French Romanian word “Salut” sounds like “猿ー” (さる/saru/monkey) in Japanese. Watch it again, this comes up at 0:50 in the video.

If I knew any French Romanian I’d point more out for you… but I can’t spell anything in Romanian.

Funny thing, now whenever you hear this song, you’ll be unable to hear Salut and you’ll only hear 猿。I’m serious. Try it. You’ll see.

Here’s a basic one, the whole “numa numa” thing sounds sort of like “noma” which would be like 飲ま, a weird form of 飲む (のむ/nomu/drink) in Japanese, so the video shows the cats chugging wine or something at that point of the song.

maiahi1

Personally, I find the ペン チラ at 2:01 when he flashes a pen hilarious. (チラッ！ is a kinda “sound” that is made when you flash something into sight real quick…)

The キープ だ 牛 at 1:26 is funny too because it really does sound like he’s singing, “keep da ushi…” I’ll never be able to listen to this song again without thinking キープ だ 牛 when I hear that part. I have no idea what it means in French… and I probably never will. It’s over I tell ya.

Anyhow, the more you listen to this song with your ears turned to Japanese input mode, the more the video and the subtitles will start to make sense, and the more crazy you’ll become.

Enjoy!

Here’s a pretty advanced 空耳 you can practice your new skills with. A friend in Japan emailed this to me with the warning, don’t die of laughter…

At 0:37 灰皿替えて〜! (haizara kaete!) Change the Ashtray!!!

Wow.

If you’ve got a favorite soramimi video you’d like to share, tell us in the comments!

- Harvey

  • http://mokudekiru.com mo

    Hahahahaha. My favorite part was changing:

    sunt eu, un haiduc -> すげぇ、うん、入る？
    And the other guy being like 何が！？

    Correction though: Isn’t Dragostea Din Tei Romanian, not French?

  • gmh

    These kinds of videos actually exist in any combination of languages you can imagine. I remember watching one all the way back in 2000 called “Hatten ar din” that consisted of some Swede misinterpreting a song in Arabic. Of course, one of the funniest and most famous examples of this kind of thing is the Irrational Exuberance (aka Yatta) video, which is Japanese->English: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/yatta

  • Catalin

    You are right -mo- “Dragostea Din Tei” isnt’t in French it’s in Romanian.

  • http://www.japannewbie.com harvey

    Post edited! Thanks for calling me out there. Hey… why did you guys know it was in Romanian??

  • Catalin

    Because i am from Romania :).

  • http://mokudekiru.com mo

    Dunno! It was big when I was in high school and looked up the lyrics at some point… :) Doesn’t sound much like french to me though!

  • http://tech.gtaero.net/ Navarr

    You shouldn’t have assumed it was french just because they used Salut =p

    However, I’ve seen this same phenomena occur with English speakers as well. “Have a slutty day” =p

    So it’s kinda…. worldwide now, ne?

  • http://www.japannewbie.com harvey

    You know. This just proves a point I was talking about to a friend yesterday. I lived in France for 6 months. Studied French in a school for 3 of those months (nights, I was working) – but I still suck. Japanese is hard yeah, but so are lots of other languages, like French!

    I totally thought that was French! I feel punked.

    Salut!

    Cool that this is not just a Japan phenomenon though!

    - Harvey

  • http://turningotaku.com Will

    Sounds like a great Japanese drinking game song :D

  • http://yuumeijanai.com auxie

    Oh Japan, it always comes back to drinking, doesn’t it? :D The ペン チラ cracked me up. I always thought キープ だ 牛 was “keep dancing”… apparently not?

    Sort of reminds me of the stuff over at Tofulator, like this ‘translation’ of an Indian music video.

    Anyway, it’s always cool to find Japanese equivalents for stuff I find funny in English. Thanks!

  • http://caught-redhanded.com Ryan

    Great find. Why does it not surprise me in the slightest that the Japanese not only have this phenomenon but have also named it too?

  • http://www.joshuazimmerman.com Joshua Zimmerman

    You know… you could do the same thing with Indian music videos. For example this video, which is a total hoot.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA1NoOOoaNw

  • Gil

    I associate 空耳 with 空耳アワー. 空耳アワー is a feature on タモリ倶楽部, an eccentric TV program.

    http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A9%BA%E8%80%B3%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC

  • Clive

    I thought Romanian was Romance based like French anyway (as opposed to the slavic based languages in the same region)?

    I recall from the rugby world cups, the French and Romanian teams always got on pretty well and managed to make themselves understood.

  • http://www.zdwonline.de Haf

    Concerning the Salut, I’m surprised that you didn’t notice that the pronunciation was nothing like when a French person says it.

    I’d also say that a lot of languages have those soramimi things. Just search Youtube for the words misheard lyrics and you’ll find lots of stuff.
    It’s also quite common to understand things differently once one has made a mental connection of some kind, for instance by mishearing something the first time or by being informed about other interpretations of what one heard. Hearing and interpreting spoken words is after all just pattern recognition.

    A German radio station did a special a few years ago about misheard lyrics in popular German and English songs, which was quite hilarious. People were saying the craziest things about certain words and sentences in various songs and after the studio played that part of a song, everyone heard what they heard. :)

  • http://yonasu.com/ Jonas

    Keep da ushi! Hahaha, this is hilarious :D

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