Ep. 8 — Fūai: the feel of a material

It's All Japanese to Me · Oct 19, 2026 · 3m · transcript

Today’s word is “fūai.” A Japanese dictionary of chemistry describes it as a term for how good a woven or knitted fabric feels to the touch and how beautiful it looks, taken together. I go through the words people use when they judge it, like hari, koshi, numeri, and shari, and how fūai has even been standardized and turned into numbers.

Sources:

* Kotobank, “Fūai” (Dictionary of Chemistry, 2nd ed., Morikita; Japanese)

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