Kid Ethnic: Mixed-Race Adventures in Japan: From Flesh and Bone to Wooden Death: Wee Sounds of Confusion

From Flesh and Bone to Wooden Death: Wee Sounds of Confusion · 5 November 07

True story, 1:

The students awaited the next question.

I pointed to my knee. ‘What’s this?’ I asked.

‘Log,’ said the first.

‘Kill,’ said the second.

They were not joking, and they were not stupid (explanation below).

True Story, 2:

A friend of mine is leaving his school office. He wishes to say, ‘Shitsurei-shimasu’.

Instead he bows deeply and announces, ‘Shamisen.’
—-
If you don’t speak Japanese, Story 2’s not that amusing. Both words start with ‘Sh’ and have ‘m’s in the middle, an easy mistake to make, right?

Slightly more amusing if you know the meaning, in which case it reads like this:

A friend of mine is leaving his school office. He wishes to say, ‘I’m excusing myself, see you later’.

Instead he bows deeply and announces, ‘Three-string Japanese classical banjo.’

Now, when I tell my Japanese friends the second story, they laugh like crazy. When I tell my Japanese friends the FIRST, and, to me, funnier story, they find it only mildly amusing. Nobody busts out laughing.

To them, the friend in Story 2 is making a hilariously absurd mistake.
The students in Story 1 are merely making minor errors:

‘Log’: The lady thought I was trying to get them to say “leg”, obviously. She just got a vowel wrong.

‘Kill’ and ‘Knee’ both start with ‘K’, the student just blurted out the wrong ‘K’ word.

And when I think of it that way, they’re right, of course.
—-
FROM WHICH WE MIGHT CONCLUDE:

1) What seems like a minor pronunciation error to a non-native speaker can be a comical and huge distinction to a native-speaker. In any language.

2) Writing subtitles for pun-filled foreign comedies must be dang near impossible.

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That is the most GLORIOUS dictionary I’ve ever seen! Makes me want to STUDY!…in cursive, of course(^-) Where did come across such a neat find?

Do you know the word for elbow in Japanese? I remember I would always get elbow, knee and rainbow mixed up.

Elbow=Hiji
Knee=Hiza
Rainbow=Niji

The “Ni” in Rainbow always made me think “Knee”, even thought the “ji” part is actually part of Elbow, not Knee.

— jason 394 days ago #
Yeah, I love that dictionary. It belongs to my neighbor.

I have a hard time remembering ‘hiji’ because I never talk about elbows. People sometimes say their knees hurt, but they don’t say a dang thing about elbows ever.

— saleem 393 days ago #
Probably because tennis isn’t exactly the national sport of Japan.

In fact, have you ever seen anyone playing tennis in Japan?

— Byzek 391 days ago #
Great photo Saleem!

— Kevin 390 days ago #
Thanks, Kevin.

BYZEK: Man, I’ve seen my dad playing Nintendo Wii Tennis in Japan. It looks like this:
Le Wii Tenis con Padre (click here for photo)
— saleem 386 days ago #
Wii has never looked as exciting. (Notice my benign comment is really a means to see if kidethnic is still mad at me and continues to deny me commenting privileges.)

— Maggie 385 days ago #
Ah, thanks for the benign comment. Since it will neither harm nor benefit me, I won’t have it removed. Over time it will be as if kidethnic.com was born that way.

— saleem 385 days ago #
kidethnic? Mad? Really?

— Byzek 381 days ago #
Ah, Maggie was referring to the technological machinations that make words appear on kidethnic.com , not the narrator of the site.

She was unable to comment for a long while, for reasons unknown.
Unfortunately, I think the comments engine on this site gives problems to several people, but doesn’t seem to be consistent in who or when…

Sorry about that, all. I’ll try and figure it out…

— saleem 381 days ago #

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