mimi ni tako ga dekiru lit. ‘calluses form on your ears’
Japanese idiom, casual. To have completely run out of patience with something.
Draft Not yet checked by a native Japanese speaker.
How do people use 耳にたこができる
?
Casual and very common, said when someone repeats the same advice, story or complaint for the hundredth time: 耳にたこができたよ (I’ve got calluses on my ears). The most frequent pattern is 耳にたこができるほど聞いた / 聞かされた (heard it so often I’ve grown calluses). It only covers being sick of hearing something, so it doesn’t work for being fed up with a job or a person in general.
Also said 耳に胼胝ができる, 耳にたこができるほど聞かされる
耳にたこができる
in real sentences
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耳にたこができたよ。
Mimi ni tako ga dekita yo.
I’m sick of hearing it.
Tatoeba, sentence by bunbuku, translation by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
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お祖母さんの昔話は耳にたこができるほど聞かされた。
Obāsan no mukashibanashi wa mimi ni tako ga dekiru hodo kikasareta.
I’ve had to listen to Grandma’s old stories so often that I’m sick of them.
Tatoeba, sentence by bunbuku, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does 耳にたこができる
come from?
Nihon Kokugo Daijiten’s first example is a senryū from the Yanagidaru collection (1785), and Higuchi Ichiyō used it in her story Nigorie (1895). The image is a callus: the same thing rubbing your ears so often that the skin hardens. The dictionary also lists 耳たぼに胼胝, “calluses on the earlobes”, as an older variant.
Mistakes learners make with 耳にたこができる
Picturing an octopus. たこ is often written in katakana as タコ, which also means octopus (蛸), but here it’s 胼胝, the hard skin that builds up where something keeps rubbing. Your ears have been rubbed raw by the same words.
Other Japanese idioms like 耳にたこができる
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?
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