穴があったら入りたい

Word by word

hole · NOM · if there were · enter-want

Idiomatic sense

To be so embarrassed that one wants to disappear. The picture is a hole in the ground, and the wish to crawl into it.

The feeling is shame, usually just after a social mistake. It is not fear, and it is not sadness.

Examples

1. 名前を間違えて、穴があったら入りたい気持ちだった。

   I got their name wrong and wanted to disappear.

2. みんなの前で噛んでしまって、穴があったら入りたい。

   I tripped over my words in front of everyone and wished the floor would open.

Equivalents

Marks say how far the other phrase travels with this one. How to read them.

1. exact

   English

   to wish the floor would swallow one up

   Same picture, a hole or a giving way of the floor, and the same rush of shame.

2. exact

   German

   vor Scham im Boden versinken

   To sink into the floor from shame. Same image, same feeling.

3. exact

   French

   vouloir rentrer sous terre

   To want to go back under the earth. Same image.

4. partial

   Spanish

   meter la pata

   The blunder itself. Japanese here is the feeling after the blunder. The two often arrive together.

Notes

噛む in the second example is the speech stumble, the way a speaker bites a word in half. It is a very common partner of this phrase.

穴があれば入りたい is heard, and たら is the form to treat as the idiom.

Sources

• Headword confirmed in JMdict (EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0). The published sense is shame strong enough to want to disappear. Examples here are original.

Mentioned from

• partial meter la pata Spanish