saru mo ki kara ochiru lit. ‘even monkeys fall from trees’
Japanese idiom, everyday. Even the most skilled people sometimes make mistakes.
Draft Not yet checked by a native Japanese speaker.
How do people use 猿も木から落ちる
?
Everyday Japanese that children pick up early, and fine in any company. People usually say it to comfort someone skilled who just slipped up, often softened as “猿も木から落ちるって言うじゃない” (you know what they say, even monkeys fall from trees). It stays in the plain present form whatever the tense of the mistake.
Also said 猿も木から墜ちる
猿も木から落ちる
in real sentences
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猿も木から落ちる。
Saru mo ki kara ochiru.
Even monkeys fall from trees.
Tatoeba, sentence by xtofu80, translation by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
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猿も木から落ちる。でも僕は登ることさえできない。
Saru mo ki kara ochiru. Demo boku wa noboru koto sae dekinai.
Even monkeys fall from trees. But I can’t even climb.
Tatoeba, sentence by DJ_Saidez, translation by DJ_Saidez, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does 猿も木から落ちる
come from?
The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (via Kotobank) gives the earliest recorded use as a haikai verse in the collection Takatsukuba (1638), which already calls it a well-known saying: “猿も木から落るたとへの木葉かな”. Nobody has traced it further back, and since the picture explains itself, there’s no origin story to doubt. Korean has the same proverb word for word (원숭이도 나무에서 떨어진다), which the proverb dictionary Kotowaza o Shiru Jiten (on Kotobank) notes.
Mistakes learners make with 猿も木から落ちる
Using it for a beginner’s blunder. The joke only works because monkeys are expert climbers, so it fits a pro, a teacher or a champion, never someone who’s just starting out.
Other Japanese idioms like 猿も木から落ちる
Spot a mistake in 猿も木から落ちる
?
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