• 18 . 06 . 04

  • A slip of the tongue in Japanese class nearly implies a slip of the knife.

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A Cutting Remark

Learning Japanese is rapidly becoming the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. Quite apart from the alien word order and the necessity to use different levels of politeness to different people, I am now finding that pronunciation is very important.

Today during my Japanese lesson I attempted to say that I was forced to do something. All of the Japanese teachers stopped and looked over. It turns out that what I had actually said was, roughly translated, “I was castrated”. The former is Kyōsei, the latter, Kyosei. The difference? Negligible. After three failed attempts to copy my teacher, to a lot of giggling, I gave up. I got back at her by asking her to say “Qantas”; I’ll leave it to your imagination to figure out what she actually said…

Still keep forgetting to bring the new posts with me when I come to the internet cafe. Entries will include being fingerprinted and Italian restaurants, Japanese-style…

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