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A friend showed me this T-shirt on [Amazon](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sleep-
Anime-Repeat-Japanese-T-
Shirt/dp/B07GGN5FGQ/ref=pd_rhf_d_dp_s_pop_multi_srecs_sabr_cn_sccl_2_2/258-9664166-7349004?pd_rd_w=Xl7Lv&content-
id=amzn1.sym.140ed8c8-f7ad-4184-908d-64107d20c104&pf_rd_p=140ed8c8-f7ad-4184-908d-64107d20c104&pf_rd_r=WE474ZFG5011676N4223&pd_rd_wg=sqD4K&pd_rd_r=17327e69-ed1a-4355-ba3b-7ef45e5e121c&pd_rd_i=B07GGN5FGQ&customId=B07536XX75&customizationToken=MC_Assembly_1%23B07536XX75&th=1&psc=1).

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PUMab.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PUMab.png)

It obviously shows the classic "eat, sleep, _something_ , repeat" that you see
in thousands of places. My first thought on reading it was that 睡眠 seemed like
a weird choice amongst 食べる and 繰り返す. Isn't 睡眠 rather more formal? Why not use
寝る? My guess is that this was not designed by a Japanese speaker.

I then got to wondering if the dictionary form of the verb was actually the
natural choice or not. What would be written on a natural Japanese designed
version of this T-shirt?

**Edit** :

So, @aguijonazo confirms that the design is inconsistent because it has a
mixture of verbs and nouns. I'm pretty sure there is no verb for 'to watch
anime' so if I wanted verbs I would end up with "アニメを見る" on the third line
which I think would make for a pretty weird T-shirt.

That leaves me with making everything into a noun. Maybe 食事、睡眠、アニメ、??? I can't
think of a noun form for repeat and if I could it would mean 'repetition'
rather than 'repeat' and would make for another weird T-shirt. Maybe this
T-shirt isn't possible in Japanese.
CC BY-SA 4.0
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question
grammar word-choice
Natural way to express the things you do, on a T-shirt
Looks like _" Eat, sleep, X, repeat"_ is a [common snowclone in
English](https://www.pinterest.jp/KaylahCaye/eat-sleep-repeat/), but I have
never seen anything exactly like this in Japanese. This alone may indicate
that the T-shirt was designed by a non-Japanese speaker :) The meaning is
perfectly understandable, of course, but Japanese people might not find this
as interesting as those who are already familiar with this pattern do.

As for word choice, yes, it would be better to use kango/nouns or wago
consistently whenever it's easily achievable. In this case, either 食事-睡眠-アニメ-
繰り返 **し** or 食べる-寝る-アニメ(を見る)-繰り返 **す** would have been a little better. But
note that:

  * 睡眠 is not really a stilted word, so the combination of 食べる and 睡眠 doesn't seem terribly unnatural or inconsistent to me.
  * A kango equivalent of 繰り返し is 反復, but this would look a bit too technical on a casual T-shirt.
  * You can safely use the dictionary form of a verb in a list like this. 食べて-寝て-アニメを見て-繰り返す would be also possible, but it would no longer look like a bullet list of steps.

**EDIT:** Mixture of nouns and verbs is not a taboo at all, and you can see
similar patterns everywhere. As an example, see this command palette from
_Dragon Quest III_ , which is made of pure nouns (どうぐ/じゅもん), suru-verbs
(こうげき/ぼうぎょ/そうび) and a wago verb (にげる).

[![DQ3
screenshot](https://i.stack.imgur.com/movCqm.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/movCqm.png)
CC BY-SA 4.0
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answer