Language Bloopers
As anyone would say, living in a foreign culture and trying to learn the language, a person is bound to make mistakes. Most of the time they are just your regular, run-of-the-mill mistakes such as incorrectly conjugating verbs, mixing up past and present tenses and the like. Over the course of our three months here, Colby and I have certainly amassed a number of foibles, a few of which we thought were especially funny and would like to share with you. Thankfully we didn’t say anything offensive and the Japanese people we were with also found them funny.
One of my first mistakes happened last month as we were driving home from our monthly prayer day with all the fellow missionaries. We were giving our church’s Japanese pastor and his wife a ride home, trying to take advantage of the wonderful chance to practice our Japanese. I was sitting next to the pastor’s wife, happily telling her about the fish Colby and I had found in the pond in our back yard. What I intended to say to her was that we were sad because the fish most certainly looked sick. She looked at me and started laughing which was when I realized I had made a goof (that’s usually a good indication). I found out then that I actually had said that we were sad because our fish most certainly looked like an airplane! In Japanese, the word for sick (byo-kee) and the word for plane (hee-ko-kee) sound similar and I inadvertently used the wrong one!
Our classes with our language tutor are prime times for us to make some language mix-ups. In one class a few weeks ago, Colby and I were practicing our various adjectives in trying to describe different people and things. In describing a lady in our church, Colby meant to say that she was a very nice woman. However, when we noticed our tutor chuckling, we realized that instead of saying she was nice (ya-su-ee), he had said that she was a vegetable (ya-sa-ee)! Now we think twice before we complement anyone on being nice.
The last mix-up we had recently happened this past week when we were moving furniture from the storage shed into the church. The pastor and his wife were with us, as well as some other missionaries, and we were all trying to decide where to put the furniture in the church. Speaking in Japanese, Colby said to the pastor’s wife that we only wanted to move the furniture, and would move the other smaller items later. Upon seeing her burst out laughing, we all looked at Colby, who by then had figured out that instead of the word for furniture (ka-gu) he had used the word for puffer fish (fu-gu). We all had a good laugh trying to figure out how he would have confused the two words. Our language helper had been telling us about this Japanese delicacy the day before.
We have a feeling we will be making more of these bloopers in the future and so whenever we amass a few, we’ll be sure to share them. It has been an enjoyable part of learning Japanese and we’ve appreciated the Japanese people laughing with us.
Please pray for Colby and I that we would continue to be able to laugh at ourselves when we make mistakes.