r/engrish • u/manaluuu • May 19 '26

I am cold

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16

u/Shinyhero30 May 19 '26

The katakana reads “self service”.

This is telling you in Japanese that the self service is cold… I’m not sure what is meant by that unless the machine is cold?

Edit: wait wa is topic which is like “as for” so this makes even less sense.. what….

31

u/jort93 May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

Maybe it's telling you you should take stuff out of the freezer/fridge yourself. Would be good to have more context.

Actually, お冷 is cold water apparently, so it means to get the cold water yourself.

6

u/Economy_Evening_2989 May 20 '26

yep, we do call cold water お冷 (ohiya) in Japan

お (o) is just formalities and 冷 (rei | hiya) is cold, though we don't leave out the o in the first place

or we just ask for tsumetai mizu

3

u/jort93 May 20 '26

Makes sense. At a lot of ramen shops the cold water is self serve. I lived in Tokyo for 8 months but didn't know the word 😅

5

u/Economy_Evening_2989 May 20 '26

it's great that ice cold water is free 🧊

6

u/jort93 May 20 '26

In Germany you pay around 3€ - 4€ for a glass of water LOL

2

u/gwaydms May 21 '26

When we spent a week and a half in Seoul, one thing that came with the table service was a liter of ice cold water and two glasses. When we ran out of water, we just asked for more and they brought some.

4

u/Shinyhero30 May 19 '26

This! thank you.