Quote:The Grass is always greener on the other side... An interesting proverb, the implication of which certainly started a mass debate on this web site.

But can the problem be identified within the Japanese of this very proverb?
隣の芝生は青く見える. (tonari no shibafu wa aoku mieru)
Lit. Next door's lawn looks bluer.

So there you have it, the proverb just doesn't work quite as well when you are concerned about the neighbour's lawn being a slightly nicer shade of blue.

Now I know many of you are saying "Ah, but the Japanese commonly use the word for blue when they mean green‚ even though there is a perfectly respectful word for green too (midori 「緑」). But the plot thickens, the Japanese word for "brown" is "chairo" 「茶色」 which literally means "tea coloured". Now we also know that Japanese tea is actually green (or blue?) which in my opinion would also make brown = green = blue.

So does this mean that the grass is actually BROWNER on the other side, which means it isn't quite as nice as my lawn. Of course it could still mean that the lawn is greener, or is in fact a rather nice shade of blue which just doesn't seem to make much sense at all.

Hmmmmmm... all this confusion may also explain why not many houses is Japan actually have lawns to start with.

Hope this clears things up a bit.

rrrrrray Wrote:Interestingly, 青 actually means "green" in Chinese.
And most (if not all) Chinese tea are of dark brown colour, so 茶色 definitely means brown in Chinese without ambiguities.

Tobberoth Wrote:(抹茶 is horrible, at least in Ice cream).

chochajin Wrote:

rrrrrray Wrote:Interestingly, 青 actually means "green" in Chinese.
And most (if not all) Chinese tea are of dark brown colour, so 茶色 definitely means brown in Chinese without ambiguities.

Is that the reason why for Japanese people so many things that are actually green are 青 for them? (e.g. traffic light, apples etc.)?

@Teskal: Woah, thanks! I NEVER realized!! (゜ロ゜')

Tobberoth Wrote:It's not like all Japanese tea is green. In fact, 麦茶 is definitely my personal favorite since I don't like green tea all that much (抹茶 is horrible, at least in Ice cream).

The point of that post is funny though.

Teskal Wrote:The japanese People don't look at the leaves, they look at the color of the end product:
green tea -> brown tea
black tea -> red tea

JimmySeal Wrote:

Teskal Wrote:The japanese People don't look at the leaves, they look at the color of the end product:
green tea -> brown tea
black tea -> red tea

緑茶 = brown tea??? :|

Teskal Wrote:Japanese don't use 緑 for green tea.

That is the reason why 茶色 means brown.

Quote:The japanese People don't look at the leaves, they look at the color of the end product:
green tea -> brown tea

Teskal Wrote:No, I'm not making it up, I got this information from my Sensei in School, she is Japanese.
...
My Sensei explained that the Japanese use the Kanji for (green) tea for the color brown, because green tea is normally brown, not green.

Quote:Which kind of green tea is it?

JimmySeal Wrote:

Teskal Wrote:No, I'm not making it up, I got this information from my Sensei in School, she is Japanese.
...
My Sensei explained that the Japanese use the Kanji for (green) tea for the color brown, because green tea is normally brown, not green.

日本語 teachers have a tendency to oversimplify things or even give wrong information for the sake of simplifying things, or because they themselves don't know any better. Be careful.

Quote:Which kind of green tea is it?

Just ordinary green tea. I found it by just google searching for "green tea." None of the results in the first five pages is brown, though some are a yellowish color.

Matcha is even greener, and frothy, and yes it is made with tea powder:
http://www.greenteagourmet.com/imgs/matcha.jpg