How do you say "Floating lantern ceremony" in Japanese?

Name: Mid August a Japanese River Fills With Lanterns. Each One Is Somebody Going Home.
Uploaded: 2026-08-09T14:04:40Z
Duration: 26 s
Description: Learn to say 灯籠流し (tourou nagashi) — Floating lantern ceremony. A 30-second Japanese lesson for travelers from Kōfuku.

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Mid August a Japanese River Fills With Lanterns. Each One Is Somebody Going Home.

To say Floating lantern ceremony in Japanese, say 灯籠流し (tourou nagashi).

Mid August in Japan, a river fills with paper lanterns after dark. Every one of them is somebody's family going home.

灯籠流し tourou nagashi Floating lantern ceremony

Intermediate Cultural Wedge #learnjapanese #japantravel #obon #japanculture #japanesephrases

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In this video

これは灯籠流しです。お盆の最後の夜に行われます。 kore wa tourou nagashi desu. obon no saigo no yoru ni okonawaremasu. This is tourou nagashi. It's held on the last night of Obon.
お盆に帰ってきたご先祖様を、灯籠にのせて送ります。 obon ni kaette kita gosenzosama o, tourou ni nosete okurimasu. The ancestors who came back for Obon are sent off on the lanterns.
灯籠には、家族の名前やメッセージを書きます。 tourou ni wa, kazoku no namae ya messeeji o kakimasu. On the lanterns, people write a family member's name and a message.
見に行くときは、静かに。ここは、ご先祖様を送り出す場所ですから。 mi ni iku toki wa, shizuka ni. koko wa, gosenzosama o okuridasu basho desu kara. If you go and watch, keep it quiet. This is where the ancestors are sent off.

Why this phrase

The closing night of Obon, around the sixteenth of August: families float lanterns down a river to send the ancestors back. Reverent register, dial the wry voice down. Hard rule: no reference to Hiroshima and no bomb imagery, and this must not be scheduled on the fifth to seventh of August. Say river, not out to sea, and note that lanterns are collected downstream now.