#1 Ki ni naru: One Japanese Phrase for Worry, Curiosity and a Crush | Ukiyo Explained

A noise downstairs at night. A new café on your way to work. Someone you met at a party and cannot stop thinking about. Worry, curiosity, a crush - three quite different feelings, and English makes you sort them before you can open your mouth. Japanese has one phrase for all three: ki ni naru. Ki came into Japanese from Chinese, where it meant air, breath, vapour - and Japanese stretched it until it covered mood, intention, attention, even the fizz in a drink. One dictionary describes ki ni naru as something that catches on the heart: ki flows, and now and then something snags in it like a twig in a stream. That vagueness is a gift when you are confessing a crush. It is something else entirely when a colleague says there are "a few points that are ki ni naru." CHAPTERS 0:00 Three feelings, one phrase 0:43 What is ki? 1:32 English sorts first 2:20 "A few points of concern" 2:53 What to do when you hear it First episode of the new series "The Invisible Thing Between Us" — a series about ki, the Japanese word for the air between people:    • The Invisible Thing Between Us — a series ...   🎨 Ukiyo Explained brings Japanese culture through ukiyo-e art. This video includes the creator's own interpretations and is intended for cultural appreciation, not academic reference. #japan #japanese #japaneseculture #learnjapanese #nihongo #ukiyoexplained #untranslatablejapanese #japanlife #kininaru #気になる #ki #japanesephrases