A Difficult Riddle
A Difficult Riddle
難しいなぞなぞ
Today I will give you a little difficult nazonazo (なぞなぞ – Riddle).
今日は、少し難しいなぞなぞを紹介します。
Q: Tanaka-san, Yamaguchi-san, Etō-sam, warau to chichioya ni naru no wa dare? (田中さん、山口さん、江藤さん、笑うと父親になるのは誰？ – “Who will become a father when he laughs: Tanaka-san, Yamaguchi-san, or Etō-san?”)
Q: 田中さん、山口さん、江藤さん、笑うと父親になるのは誰？
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The answer to this riddle is Etō-san (江藤さん – “Mr. Etō”).
答えは「江藤さん」です。
Warau (笑う – “laughing”) can be rephrased as egao ni naru (笑顔になる – “becoming a smile”).
「笑う」は「笑顔になる」と言い換えられます。
In addition, egao ni naru (えがおになる) can be regarded as ” e becomes o ,” and if e of Etō-san becomes o, he will become otō-san (お父さん – “father”).
「えがおになる」、すなわち「江藤さん」の「え」が「お」になると、「おとうさん（お父さん）」になるというわけです。
Thank you very much for this Riddle series and for your website in general! As a beginner level Japanese learner your texts are very useful for comprehension practice.
Wordplay and puns are very interesting in any language, but in Japanese they are even more interesting because of kanji.
Again, thank you for the site and good luck!