{"id":22351,"date":"2022-07-20T15:51:26","date_gmt":"2022-07-20T15:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22351"},"modified":"2022-07-20T15:51:28","modified_gmt":"2022-07-20T15:51:28","slug":"tatami-swimming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22351","title":{"rendered":"Tatami Swimming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If a Japanese person compared something to practising swimming on a tatmi mat, what would you think they meant?<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nam2_7676\/7159446672\/in\/photolist-bUE34J-7PNY9E-EJ2FwG-2kxgNqe-2kUv8eH-obG5Q-qf3dKA-adxNUX-2kz6xhM-2nn2ZnG-PDi1ip-qKC1qS-XsrhLR-2jERdRt-o8wrLK-25c7BEN-Qqq9vi-rGzRaD-rGBP9p-rEkfZE-qKTyJP-61iJDw-WYqEyC-2jn41vx-2hf8kts-5kSiiy-XnYDt1-4bWwSL-2hi3vaP-o6rZr8-bBW8b-XxL3RH-29ZFJJy-25km3sY-2jgSkoy-X6Qu6U-2457UBp-FZsVjH-Kgossw-9NtN8-KaNPjk-bBW8d-QZu14E-BFHjpo-XU7txN-e2mBTL-25c7Bw1-KmkRjc-5p4t7X-23yW43y\" title=\"\u7573\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/8156\/7159446672_cae9c8769f_z.jpg\" alt=\"\u7573\" width=\"640\" height=\"412\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The idiomatic expression \u7573\u306e\u4e0a\u306e\u6c34\u7df4 (tatami no ue no suiren) means literally &#8220;swimming practise on tatami&#8221;, and refers to &#8220;useless book learning; knowing the theory but being unable to put it into practice&#8221;. It is also written \u7573\u6c34\u7df4 (tatami suiren) .<\/p>\n<p>Other tatami-related idioms include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u7573\u306e\u4e0a\u3067\u6b7b\u306c (tatmi no ue de shinu) = to die a natural death, to die in one&#8217;s own bed\u200b (&#8220;to die on tatami&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>\u7573\u307f\u639b\u3051\u308b (tatmi o kakeru) = to press for an answer, to shower questions on someone\u200b (&#8220;to hang up tatami&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The character \u7573 (tatami \/ j\u014d) refers to the traditional Japanese straw floor coverings\u200b, also known as tatami or tatami mats. The area of rooms in Japanese houses is measured by the number of tatami they contain or could contain. One tatami is 1.82 sqm or 1.54 sqm. An older version of the character is \u758a. The same character means folding paper-case or kimono wrapping paper when pronounced tat\u014d.<\/p>\n<p>The verb \u7573\u3080 (tatamu) means to fold (clothes, umbrellas, etc), to close (a shop or business) or to vacate. \u7573\u307f\u5730\u56f3 (tatami chizu) is a folding map, \u7573\u307f\u3058\u308f (tatamijiwa) is a crease, and \u7573\u307f\u6905\u5b50 (tatami isu) is a folding chair.<\/p>\n<p><em>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/jisho.org\/search\/https:\/\/jisho.org\/search\/%E7%95%B3\">jisho.org<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If a Japanese person compared something to practising swimming on a tatmi mat, what would you think they meant? The idiomatic expression \u7573\u306e\u4e0a\u306e\u6c34\u7df4 (tatami no ue no suiren) means literally &#8220;swimming practise on tatami&#8221;, and refers to &#8220;useless book learning; knowing the theory but being unable to put it into practice&#8221;. It is also written [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,125,129,10,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-idioms","category-japanese","category-language","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22351"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22353,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22351\/revisions\/22353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}