[Simple Riddles] A curated selection of fun questions that will excite everyone from kids to adults!

There are no chopsticks / There is no edge.

If you think of something that Western food and round shapes have in common, the answer might come to you more easily. The answer is that neither has hashi (chopsticks/edges). Western cuisine uses knives, forks, and spoons, not chopsticks. A round shape, as the name suggests, is rounded, so it has no edges. By the way, it’s said that about 28 percent of people worldwide use chopsticks when eating. In countries like Japan, South Korea, North Korea, China, and Singapore, people eat with chopsticks.

There is tsuyu (soup/broth or the rainy season).

Let’s start by considering what kind of season June is and what you need when eating somen noodles. Although there are various ways to eat somen, you generally use dipping sauce (tsuyu). Since June is the rainy season, called “tsuyu” in Japanese, the answer is that there is tsuyu (sauce/rainy season).

There is a toothpick (tsuma-youji).

While focusing on how takoyaki is eaten, let’s rephrase “the wife’s outing” in various ways to find a common word. Takoyaki is typically eaten with a toothpick (tsumayōji), and “wife” can be said as tsuma, while “outing/errand” can be said as yōji. Putting them together gives “tsuma yōji,” which sounds like “tsumayōji” (toothpick). That’s the intended answer here.

They’re very similar (a pun: ‘similar’ and ‘boiled’ sound the same).

“Twins” often look alike and are “very similar,” and chikuzen-ni is a dish made by “simmering well” the ingredients. Since “nite” (similar) and “nite” (simmer) are pronounced the same, the answer is “yoku nite imasu” (it’s very similar). Because chikuzen-ni can vary with the ingredients used and evokes a wide range of related words, it might be easier to arrive at the answer by starting from the idea of twins.

It will either be a complete run or it will dry out.

The answer is that both share the word “kansō”: for a marathon runner, the goal is to finish safely (kansō, meaning “to complete a race”), and dried foods are items like fish or fruit that have been dried (kansō, meaning “drying”). Let’s clearly picture each situation and feeling, and imagine the words accordingly.

The last one is the final/last move, right?

At sushi restaurants, tea is called “agari,” and in sugoroku (a Japanese board game), the goal is also called “agari.” Since both terms are often used to mark the conclusion, the answer here is “In the end, it’s agari, right?” Both are specialized terms, so whether you know them is an important point.

Spices (or a renewal fee) are required.

The common element here is “kōshinryō”: Asian cuisine is inseparable from spices (kōshinryō) that enhance aroma and heat, and when renewing a rental contract, a renewal fee (kōshinryō) is often required. Since Asian cuisine allows for a wide range of interpretations, it’s smoother to arrive at the answer by starting from the more constrained context of renewing a rental contract.