Wind carries the cold
I caught a cold. Or I have a cold. How is that in your language? Which verb do you use: “catch,” “have,” or something else? In Dutch, it’s “are”: ik ben verkouden. But you can also say, ik heb een koudje opgelopen (“I walked into a cold”).
How about in Japanese then? 風邪（かぜ）を引いた (kaze wo hiita): the verb literally means “to pull/draw” a cold. And in the word kaze there is no “cold.” There is the kanji for wind, 風 (kaze), which, coincidence or not, is pronounced the same as kaze in “cold.”
In everyday life you can even drop the particle を and just say, “Kaze hiita.” Or かぜぎみ (kaze-gimi), meaning “I’m a bit cold-ish.”
And one more interesting thing, just to make it more confusing. When you sneeze in Japan, people don’t say “bless you” or anything like that. The one who sneezes says “すみません” (sumimasen), apologizing for all the germs they’re spreading to everyone…
And Why do we say "hiku" (引く) for catching a cold in Japanese?
According to AI, the reason Japanese uses "風邪を引く" for catching a cold comes from ancient beliefs about illness. People in the past thought colds were caused by "風" (kaze: wind) carrying "邪" (ja: evil qi or bad energy) into the body. This harmful wind or energy gets "pulled in" or "drawn" (引く), so the expression developed to mean contracting a cold.
Historical Origins
Influence from Ancient China: In China, wind was believed to bring malevolent forces that caused disease. This idea spread to Japan, creating the term "風邪" (kaze, originally read as fūja). It became established around the Kamakura period and shifted to "kaze" reading in the Meiji era.
Meaning of "Hiku": "引く" means "to pull," "draw in," or "attract." Unlike other illnesses (e.g., flu is "かかる" kakaru), colds specifically evoke "pulling" bad wind into the body. Flu uses passive forms like getting afflicted.
This dates back to the Heian period, where wind was seen as drawing in evil qi to cause symptoms. The idiom persists today.
