hara o kakaete warau lit. ‘to laugh holding your belly’
Japanese idiom, everyday. To laugh very hard.
Draft Not yet checked by a native Japanese speaker.
How do people use 腹を抱えて笑う
?
Everyday Japanese, fine in conversation and in writing. The usual shapes are “腹を抱えて笑った” (I laughed holding my belly) and “腹を抱えて笑うほど” (so funny you’d hold your belly); お腹 instead of 腹 sounds a bit softer. 腹を抱える on its own means the same thing in dictionaries, but in speech people nearly always add 笑う.
Also said お腹を抱えて笑う, 腹を抱える
腹を抱えて笑う
in real sentences
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話は腹を抱えて笑うほどおかしかった。
Hanashi wa hara o kakaete warau hodo okashikatta.
The story was so funny that I split my sides.
Tatoeba, sentence by mookeee, translation by Dejo, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does 腹を抱えて笑う
come from?
The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (via Kotobank) quotes it from the Kōyō Gunkan, a military chronicle from the early 17th century: “御腹をかかへ給ふほどわらはせられ” (made him laugh so much he held his belly). The image is plain body language and needs no story behind it. The four-character compound 抱腹絶倒 uses the same picture.
Mistakes learners make with 腹を抱えて笑う
Mixing it up with 頭を抱える (to hold your head), which means being at your wits’ end. One body part over, and the laughing turns into despair.
Other Japanese idioms like 腹を抱えて笑う
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?
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