Japanese Language
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50 free Japanese Language trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Japanese is a language most people have borrowed from without ever studying it. English speakers sing, eat, fight and text using vocabulary that began in Japan, and the logos of some of the world's best-known companies quietly spell out meanings in it. Behind those borrowings sits a language that mixes several scripts in a single sentence, changes its vocabulary according to who is listening, and puts its sentences together in an order that turns English inside out. This quiz starts with the surprises: what familiar borrowed terms and brands really mean, and the superstitions and quirks hiding in everyday speech. From there it moves through the greetings and phrases a beginner meets first, the way the scripts work together on the page, how people are named and addressed, the vocabulary Japanese took from Europe, and a few harder questions on grammar, dialects, history and television. It is pitched for beginners and curious fans, with tougher questions for students who are further along. You do not need to read any Japanese script to play, because every term is given in Roman letters. Each answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches you something, and the whole set can be printed for a class, a study group or a trivia night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does the Japanese word karaoke, coined for singing over a backing track, literally mean?
Empty orchestra
Empty orchestra is the literal sense: 'kara' means empty and 'oke' is clipped from ōkesutora, a borrowing of the English word orchestra. So the term is half Japanese and half English.
Q 02What does the Japanese word emoji literally mean, despite its chance resemblance to the English word 'emotion'?
Picture character
Picture character is the literal meaning, from 'e' for picture and 'moji' for character. The symbols spread worldwide in the 2010s, after Unicode began encoding them.
Q 03The monster name Gojira, anglicized as Godzilla, is said to blend the Japanese words for gorilla and which animal?
Whale
Whale is 'kujira' in Japanese and gorilla is 'gorira', which together give Gojira. In the best-known account it was the nickname of a burly employee at the Toho film studio.
Q 04Japanese speakers call a green traffic light 'ao', a color word that normally translates into English as what?
Blue
Blue is the usual translation of 'ao', an old color word that also took in green. Japan's 'go' signals are still called ao, and so are green apples and fresh vegetation.
Q 05Some Japanese hospitals and hotels have no room four because 'shi', a word for four, also means what?
Death
Death and four are both 'shi' in Japanese, which makes the number unlucky. Speakers often prefer the alternative reading 'yon' instead.
Q 06What does the name of Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi literally mean, a meaning drawn in its red company logo?
Three diamonds
Three diamonds is the usual translation: 'mitsu' means three and 'hishi' is the water caltrop, a plant whose name also serves as the Japanese word for a rhombus. The 'h' becomes a 'b' inside the compound.
Q 07Which group of stars gives Japanese carmaker Subaru both its name and the six stars on its badge?
The Pleiades
The Pleiades are called Subaru in Japanese, and the cluster also stands for the companies that merged to form the carmaker's parent. One of the 'Seven Sisters' is said to be invisible, hence six stars.
Q 08Which English word for a business magnate began as a Japanese title meaning 'great lord', used for the shogun?
Tycoon
Tycoon comes from 'taikun', a diplomatic title for the shogun in dealings with foreign countries. Abraham Lincoln addressed an 1861 letter to the 'Tycoon of Japan'.
Q 09Which group of Japanese people has no surname at all, its members being known by given names alone?
The imperial family
The imperial family uses given names alone, such as Hirohito, and even those are rarely spoken in Japan. People prefer to say 'the Emperor' or 'the Crown Prince' as a mark of respect.
Q 10In 'Fuji-san', the name Japanese speakers use for Fuji, 'san' is not the polite title but a word meaning what?
Mountain
Mountain is the meaning: this 'san' is a Chinese-derived reading of the kanji 山, which is 'yama' on its own. That is why 'Mount Fujiyama' says the same thing twice.
Q 11Which standard Japanese daytime greeting is really the opening of a longer sentence that began 'as for today'?
Konnichiwa
Konnichiwa joins 'konnichi', meaning this day, with the topic marker 'wa'. It is what remains of fuller greetings such as 'How are you doing today?'
Q 12Which Japanese expression of thanks grew out of an old adjective meaning 'difficult to exist', and so rare?
Arigato
Arigato began as a word for something hard to come by, shifted to rare and special, and by the fifteenth century meant welcome or thankful. The full polite form adds 'gozaimasu'.
Q 13Which Japanese phrase, literally 'to humbly receive', is traditionally said just before starting a meal?
Itadakimasu
Q 21Which Japanese script, whose name means 'fragmentary kana', is used for loanwords such as 'mēru' for e-mail?
Katakana
Katakana signs began as fragments of more complex kanji, used by Buddhist monks working through Chinese texts. In modern writing they act rather like italics, marking foreign terms, emphasis and sound effects.
Q 22The Japanese kanji 森, built by tripling the simpler sign for 'tree', carries which meaning?
Forest
Forest, 'mori', is the meaning, the tripled trees suggesting a great many of them. Just two of the same sign side by side, 林, make 'hayashi', a smaller wood.
Q 23In the traditional Japanese format called tategaki, text runs down the page in columns ordered in which direction?
Right to left
Itadakimasu joins the humble word 'itadaku', to receive, with the polite ending '-masu'. It expresses gratitude to everyone and everything that made the meal possible.
Q 14Which Japanese toast, a close cousin of the Chinese 'ganbei', is the equivalent of saying 'cheers'?
Kanpai
Kanpai is the Japanese counterpart of 'bottoms up', a call to drain the glass. Mandarin 'ganbei' and Korean 'geonbae' are the same word, built from the same two Chinese characters.
Q 15The Japanese greeting 'moshi moshi', derived from a humble word meaning 'to speak', is used mainly when doing what?
Answering the phone
Answering the phone is its main job, though it can also check that a listener is still there. The phrase repeats 'mōshi', from a humble word meaning to speak.
Q 16Which Japanese farewell is a shortening of an old phrase meaning 'if that's the way it is'?
Sayonara
Sayonara shortens 'sayō naraba', first recorded around 1742 as a linking phrase meaning 'if it's like that, then'. Its use as a standalone goodbye dates from the 1780s.
Q 17In Japanese, where sound-mimicking words called giseigo fill everyday speech, which animal says 'wan-wan'?
A dog
A dog barks 'wan-wan' in Japanese, one of a huge stock of mimetic words. The language even has them for things that make no noise at all, such as 'shīn' for silence.
Q 18Which Japanese word for 'cute' names an aesthetic of innocent charm exemplified by Hello Kitty?
Kawaii
Kawaii culture took off in the 1970s, driven by youth culture and by cute mascots such as Hello Kitty, created by Sanrio in 1974. The similar-sounding 'kowai' means scary.
Q 19Which Japanese word for 'I', the form used in formal contexts, also carries the meaning 'private' or 'personal'?
Watashi
Watashi is the standard polite 'I', and its kanji 私 also means private or personal. Boys and men often prefer 'boku', which carries a masculine, youthful impression.
Q 20Which Japanese title, literally 'born earlier', is used for teachers, doctors, lawyers and accomplished artists alike?
Sensei
Sensei is written 先生, 'born earlier', and honors anyone who has mastered a skill. Chinese reads the same two kanji as 'xiansheng', an everyday title equivalent to Mr.
Right to left is the order, a layout inherited from Chinese practice. It is why a traditionally printed Japanese book opens with its spine on the right, back to front to Western eyes.
Q 24Which Heian-era novel by court lady Murasaki Shikibu was written largely in hiragana, then popular among women?
The Tale of Genji
The Tale of Genji dates from the early eleventh century and is often called the first novel, a title scholars still debate. Hiragana had caught on among court women, who were denied the schooling given to men.
Q 25Which American missionary doctor devised the main system for writing Japanese in Roman letters, used on passports?
James Hepburn
James Hepburn introduced the spelling system in the Japanese–English dictionary he published in 1867. Japan's foreign ministry requires it on passports, and it is the standard on road and station signs.
Q 26Which Japanese reading aid, common in books for young readers, prints small kana beside kanji to show how they sound?
Furigana
Furigana, also known as 'rubi', glosses rare kanji and clears up unusual or ambiguous readings. It lets learners follow text containing kanji they have not yet been taught.
Q 27Which feature of written English is normally absent from Japanese text, which may break lines at any point?
Word spaces
Word spaces are normally omitted from Japanese text, and a line is free to wrap without regard for where one term ends. The full stop survives, though it is drawn as a small circle.
Q 28In Japanese kana spelling, what does a small 'tsu' placed before another kana tell the reader to do?
Double the consonant
Double the consonant that follows: the small 'tsu', known as the sokuon, is all that separates 'kite', meaning come, from 'kitte', a postage stamp.
Q 29What do the two kanji of Nihon, the Japanese name for Japan, literally mean when read together?
The sun's origin
The sun's origin is the literal sense, usually rendered as the Land of the Rising Sun. Marco Polo's 'Cipangu', an early European name for the country, came from a Chinese reading of the same name.
Q 30Which term names a Japanese kanji's 'sound reading', the pronunciation adapted from Chinese rather than native speech?
On'yomi
On'yomi are Sino-Japanese readings, based on Chinese pronunciations reshaped to fit Japanese sounds. A kanji used alone as a whole word more often takes its native reading instead.