超初心者向け 人の体の言葉

How do you say “tall” in Japanese?

For a person’s height, Japanese usually says 背が高い (se ga takai) — literally “the height is high” — rather than using 高い by itself. 背 (se) is your stature, and 高い (takai) is “high.” The opposite isn’t “short” but 背が低い (se ga hikui), “height is low.” So a person doesn’t just be tall; their 背 is high — a small grammatical flip worth internalising early.

This “body-part + が + adjective” frame runs through loads of descriptions: 目が大きい (“big eyes”), 髪が長い (“long hair”), 足が長い (“long legs”). Note that 高い on its own is perfectly fine for a tall building or mountain (and it also means “expensive”) — it’s specifically a person’s height that takes the 背が高い frame. And 高い/低い pair up for height, while short length is a different word again — 短い (mijikai).