kuchi ga suberu lit. ‘your mouth slips’
Japanese idiom, everyday. To reveal a secret, often by accident.
Draft Not yet checked by a native Japanese speaker.
How do people use 口が滑る
?
Everyday Japanese for blurting out something you meant to keep to yourself. It’s almost always in the past and often comes with つい or うっかり: “つい口が滑った” (it just slipped out). If you want to make yourself the one doing it, use the transitive version 口を滑らす or 口を滑らせる, as in “口を滑らしちゃった”.
Also said 口を滑らす, 口を滑らせる
口が滑る
in real sentences
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し、しまったぁ！つい口がすべった。
Shi, shimattā! Tsui kuchi ga subetta.
D-drat! I didn’t mean to let that slip..
Tatoeba, sentence by fcbond, translation by fcbond, CC BY 2.0 FR
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ついつい口を滑らしちゃってさ、この間トムと映画を見に行ったの、彼氏にばれちゃった。
Tsuitsui kuchi o suberashichatte sa, kono aida Tomu to eiga o mi ni itta no, kareshi ni barechatta.
I accidentally let it slip to my boyfriend that I’d gone to a movie with Tom the other day.
Tatoeba, sentence by small_snow, translation by hcougar, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does 口が滑る
come from?
Nobody knows who first said it, but Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (via Kotobank) finds it in a haiku in the collection Haikai-bukuro (1801): “くち辷るむかしの恋やなつの月”, in which a mouth slips and an old love comes out under the summer moon. The transitive 口を滑らす turns up in a rakugo story from 1895 and in Natsume Sōseki’s I Am a Cat. The picture is simple enough: words slide out before your brain can grab them.
Mistakes learners make with 口が滑る
Using it for telling a secret on purpose. Your mouth only slips by accident, so for deliberately spilling the beans Japanese says 秘密をばらす (to blab a secret) instead.
Other Japanese idioms like 口が滑る
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?
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