[For Seniors] Have Fun with Wordplay Characters! A Collection of Funny Puzzles

Social worker / Care workermoko
My name is Moko, a mother of three who admired my mother and worked in the care industry as a care worker and as a medical social worker (MSW) in a hospital. I will be drawing on my previous experience to write mainly about caregiving. Thank you in advance.
Work experience in a hospital as a physical therapistNakamū
I worked as a physical therapist at a general hospital for about four years. I’ve supported a wide range of patients, from those needing emergency rehabilitation to those doing rehabilitation at home at a comfortable pace. As a writer, I’d be happy to share health-related information with many people. Thank you, and I look forward to working with you!

We’ve put together a collection of brain teasers that people of all ages can enjoy.

For seniors, they can also serve as brain training, so this might be a popular idea.

These riddles range from ones that use kanji and hiragana to questions that make you think about what’s being described, such as “Where is the highest-altitude train station in Japan?” and “What vehicle occasionally eats bread?”

The nice thing about brain teasers is that you don’t need prior knowledge—if you twist your thinking a bit, you can figure them out.

Thinking them through together with seniors around you can spark interaction and make things lively!

Be sure to take this opportunity to give them a try.

[For Seniors] Have Fun with Riddle Letters! A Collection of Funny Puzzles (21–30)

What is on top of the top?

What is on top of “upper”? Here’s a hint: think of “upper” written in hiragana. The answer is “ai.” Above “ue” in the sequence a-i-u-e-o is “ai,” right? It might have been tricky to realize it was about the alphabetical order of the Japanese syllabary.

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Two katakana characters fought. Which two characters are they?

What does it mean for two katakana characters to fight? Here's a hint: try writing 'fight' in katakana. 'Fight' becomes バトル (batoru). In other words, the answer is “バ” and “ル.”

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Nakamū

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[For Seniors] Have Fun with Riddle Characters! A Collection of Funny Puzzles (31–40)

What is something that has two parents and three children?

What is something that parents have two of and children have three of? Here’s a hint: think of things that include the words “parent” and “child” in their names. The answer is joints. Do you see why? The number of joints differs between the thumb and the little finger. The thumb has two joints, while the little finger has three.

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Nakamū

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Why are all the baseball players crying?

Why is the baseball player crying? Here’s a hint: professional baseball games are often played at night. The answer is because it’s a “night game” (nighter). Did you know that night games are called “nighters”? It was a wordplay on “nighter” and “cried” (naita). Did you get it?

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Nakamū

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What happens if a horse gets fat and draws attention?

What happens if a horse gets fat and someone “puts an eye on it”? The hint is to think in kanji. If you write “a horse gets fat,” it becomes the character 駄 (horse + fat). Got it now? The answer is “no good” (駄目). When you add the character for “eye” 目 to 駄, it becomes 駄目, which means “no good.”

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What is something that goes down to 6, and from 6 onward goes up?

It’s a numbers riddle, isn’t it? What kind of numbers are we dealing with? Here’s a hint: they’re numbers we see every day. The answer is the hands of a clock. The clock’s hands go down until they point to 6, and after that they go up, right?

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Nakamū

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