97622
In [one
episode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iN2N8KgAw4&ab_channel=MakotoAmakawa)
of _Gabriel Dropout_ , after the boss of the cafe comforted her that her
Japanese will get fluent, Gabriel said, '櫓三年に棹八年'. Then, the background color
of the scene shot changes to black.

That sentence seems to be a funny one in that context. Why? Is '櫓三年に棹八年' a
playful saying?

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iLOPV.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iLOPV.png)
[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/sO9nK.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/sO9nK.png)
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-12-13T08:58:53.453
97620
2022-12-13T17:59:17.487
2022-12-13T17:59:17.487
39145
39145
question
idioms context idiomaticity
Is '櫓三年に棹八年' a playful saying?
This is funny simply because 櫓三年に棹八年 is an extremely rare proverb known to
only a few Japanese speakers. An avid learner may know
[桃栗三年柿八年](https://jisho.org/word/%E6%A1%83%E6%A0%97%E4%B8%89%E5%B9%B4%E6%9F%BF%E5%85%AB%E5%B9%B4),
which is a much more common equivalent of this proverb. However, if she knows
櫓三年に棹八年, it means either that her vocabulary level is beyond that of most
native Japanese speakers, or that she learned Japanese from some unusual
material.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-12-13T09:16:30.417
97622
2022-12-13T13:45:16.373
2022-12-13T13:45:16.373
5010
5010
97620
answer