ChiramiThe Japanese word for nap is noon sleep (昼寝)
Hirune (昼寝) is the Japanese word for a nap: a short sleep in the daytime. The kanji spell it out plainly: 昼, noon, and 寝, sleep. A hirune is a “noon sleep”, the kind you take after lunch, on the sofa, under a tree, or with your head on your desk.
What the kanji say
昼 (hiru, chuu) means noon, and more broadly the daytime. It’s also lunch: 昼ご飯 (hirugohan) is the midday meal, and 昼休み (hiruyasumi) is the lunch break. Look inside it and you’ll find 日, the sun. The Shuowen Jiezi, a Chinese dictionary from around 100 CE, explains its old form, 晝, as the time between sunrise and sunset, “with the night as its boundary”.
寝 (ne, shin) means to sleep, or to lie down. Its top, 宀, is a roof. Under the roof on the left is 丬, a short form of 爿, which began as a drawing of a bed. The right side mostly gives the sound. A bed under a roof: the place where you sleep.
In 昼寝, 寝 is read ne, as in the verb 寝る (neru), to sleep or go to bed. Its Chinese-style reading, shin, turns up in more formal words like 寝室 (shinshitsu), a bedroom.
Noon or daytime?
The video calls it a “noon sleep”, and that’s fair: noon is the first meaning dictionaries give for 昼. But a hirune doesn’t have to happen at twelve o’clock. Any sleep in the daylight hours counts, from a ten-minute doze to a long Sunday afternoon on the sofa. Dictionaries translate it as “afternoon nap”, “sleeping during the day” or “siesta”.
How to use it
ちょっと昼寝してくる。
Chotto hirune shite kuru.
I'm going to grab a quick nap.
昼寝したら、すっきりした。
Hirune shitara, sukkiri shita.
I feel refreshed after my nap.
猫が日なたで昼寝している。
Neko ga hinata de hirune shite iru.
The cat is napping in the sun.
昼寝しすぎて、夜眠れない。
Hirune shisugite, yoru nemurenai.
I napped too long, and now I can't sleep at night.
- 昼寝する (hirune suru) is the verb: to take a nap.
- 仮眠 (kamin) is also a nap, but a practical one: a short sleep to keep you going when you can’t properly go to bed, the kind you snatch between jobs or on a night shift. 昼寝 sounds more relaxed and homely.
- 居眠り (inemuri) is nodding off where you sit: on the train, in a lecture, in a meeting.
- 二度寝 (nidone), “second sleep”, is going back to sleep after you’ve woken up in the morning. Do it too often and you’ll be guilty of 寝坊 (nebou), oversleeping.
Words with the same kanji
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 昼ご飯 | hirugohan | lunch |
| 昼休み | hiruyasumi | lunch break |
| 昼間 | hiruma | daytime |
| 寝る | neru | to sleep, to go to bed |
| 寝坊 | nebou | oversleeping |
| 二度寝 | nidone | going back to sleep |
Remember it
The sun (日) is high in the sky: it’s 昼, noon. Under the roof (宀) there’s a bed (丬), and you’re on it: 寝. Put them together and you have 昼寝, the best part of a lazy afternoon.
The kanji in this lesson
Tap Draw it to watch the stroke order. Numbers show where each stroke starts.