Why Blue in Japan Looks Like Green to Americans

Video written by Tristan Purdy

[campei]

"Boss, I'm coming in late today, I'm stuck in a traffic marmelade."

[Mandrake_root]

This makes me think about how we call people's hair "red" when its really orange.

[JustMois]

Meanwhile in ancient Greece: 'wine colored seas'

[deniskhafizov]

So it's basically not "red" and "blue" but "warm color" and "cool color".

[NikolajLepka]

this blue/green merger is so common among the world languages, that linguists have dubbed this common colour "grue"

[notachinesespypleasebeliev]

“Japanese is not English”
Wow, that blew my mind.

[rogerwilco]

And because of differences like this, translation is much harder than most people realize and why services like Google Translate have such a difficult time.

[davidsobral]

I love how his pronunciation of "ao" and "aoi" is all over the place. Each time he says something different hahaha

[TheIllusioner]

I am Japanese but live in America, and I tend to say “midori” rather than “ao”, while my parents say “ao”, which I find interesting

[ev]

ah yes the colours red orange yogurt green blue indigogo viola black and white

[michelleb]

I’ve always found it interesting that in English we consider “pink” to be completely separate from “red, ” unlike the lighter tints of blue, green, or yellow. Even if one says, “False! I love navy blue but hate baby blue, ” we must concede that we still consider each to be a “blue” but hardly consider “pink” to be a “red.”

[duaine]

Moms in Japan be like: if you want dessert you’ll have to eat your blues first.

[KGDHMF]

Ahhh, Like Kermit the frog said '' it aint easy being aoi '' ....

[racheljensen]

When I was studying linguistics at uni, we learned about an indigenous culture that the word for white was the same for pink. When asked to seperate shades, they did, but by word, they were grouped togerher.

[srx]

"Yo, you got the green stuff?"

Japanese Drug Dealer: "You mean the blue stuff?"

[lukereed]

That stock footage of a Japanese lady eating green salad while wearing a blue sweater is like the most relevant stock footage you've ever used.

[CCABPSacsach]

“It has nothing to do with eyeballs, eyes or balls”
Oh phew it’s not those balls

[memor]

0:55 “it has nothing to do with eyeballs, eyes or *balls”*

[coinvestnet]

Ancient Japanese: I see White, Black, Red and Blue
American Politics: Yes

[FolkIceCream]

"Red, orange, yogurt." Sounds about right.