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木漏れ日 komorebi
Sunlight through leaves.
What does komorebi mean?
One word for the dappled light falling through trees. English needs a whole sentence; Japanese just points at it.
Example
公園の木漏れ日、気持ちいいね。
The dappled sunlight in the park feels lovely.
Vibe
Who you can say this to, and how it lands.
Safe to use Fine in ordinary conversation.
Culture note
It is the favourite example whenever Japanese people gently brag about the precision of their vocabulary.
The story behind komorebi
The word is built like a small machine: 木 for tree, 漏れ from the verb to leak, 日 for sunlight. Light leaking through trees. Japanese assembles compounds like this constantly, which is why 木漏れ日 feels completely ordinary to the people who use it. It turns up in weather chat, photo captions, and the name of half the cafés in the countryside.
Abroad it has a stranger second life. Every list of beautiful untranslatable words picks it up, usually with a soft-focus photograph, as evidence of some special Japanese sensitivity to nature. Japanese speakers find this mildly funny. It names a real thing that happens every sunny afternoon.
Get komorebi in your pocket
木漏れ日 is one of 308 words in YABAI, a Japanese culture snack for Android. Every word comes with its meaning, an example sentence, a vibe check and a story like the one above — in 13 languages, read aloud by your device. Paid app: no ads, no sign-up, no subscription.
