Sing as though no one can hear you

Why can’t they hear me? I’d better sing even more loudly.

放歌高吟
hou.ka.kou.gin

Literally: release – song – high – recite / chant / sing

Alternately: Singing in a loud voice, without worrying about whether you may be bothering anybody else.

Notes:

This is a compound of compounds, and its parts may be flipped to produce 高吟放歌; unlike many such compounds, the first halves of the parts may also be swapped, to produce 高歌放吟 (kouka hougin). Both of these variants seem to be significantly less common than the original order (presented above), though.

This phrase is surprisingly modern: it is attributed to a 1948 short story titled 「テニヤンの末日」 (Teniyan no matsujitsu), by 中山義秀 (Nakayama Gishuu).

 

HouKaKouGinTeniyan

About Confanity

I love the written word more than anything else I've had the chance to work with. I'm back in the States from Japan for grad school, but still studying Japanese with the hope of becoming a translator -- or writer, or even teacher -- as long as it's something language-related.
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