Jan 16, 2025
Guests:
K-san, A'chan, M-san, A-san
Discussion Content:
K and A arrived first, carrying some vegetables they had just bought. Jokingly, I pretended they were a present for me, and mentioned that kids used to give teachers an apple as a present. When we looked up the origin of that practice, it was in order to butter up the teacher. Kanami said this was like the Japanese “Goma wo suru” idea.
A’chan arrived later, and she had a big bandage on her left hand. Turns out she overheated soy milk in the microwave and when she touched the cup, the soy milk exploded, burning her hand, and also some went on her face and neck. Fortunately, it was a cold morning and so she was wearing a hood over her head, which protected her face somewhat.
Amazingly, she still went to work that day before going to the hospital. She works as a dental hygienist, and no one else could replace her, so she felt she had to go - simply placing a bandage on her hand, over which she had to wear gloves. The others said she has a strong sense of responsibility and also she must have a strong resistance to pain.
I said, “Dear, oh dear” and “You poor thing”, and explained that in this case, the word “poor” doesn’t mean having no money, but means sad and pitiful (ie, “kawai-sou”).
When A’chan said the word “hood”, she pronounced it more like “food” (as most Japanese people do), and so we talked about the difference in English between an “H” sound and an “F” sound.
To practice, I mimicked the Japanese alphabet, but replaced “ha hi fu he ho” with “fa fi fu fe, fo”. This then reminded me of the poem from “Jack and the Beanstalk”, where the giant says “Fee-fi-fo-fum”, and so we looked that up on Google. Like many of the old fairy-tales and children’s stories, this one is also very gruesome:
“Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive, or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread”
When the group remarked on how gruesome this was, I agreed and reminded K and A of when they looked up the full story of the Japanese kid’s game, “Daruma-san ga Koronda”, and I asked them to tell M and A’chan. However, A’chan already seemed to know about the story, and said that the Daruma gets both his arms and legs chopped off. M remarked that that must be the reason the Daruma is just a round-shaped body.
This led to a discussion about the words for body parts, and I mentioned it seems strange that Japanese say the word “ashi” for both “leg” and “foot”. K said that Americans didn’t have a word for “koshi”, but I said that that is simply called the “lower back”, and the opposite of that is “upper back”.
A’chan asked about the word for “ashi-kubi”, which is “ankle”, and I corrected their pronunciation so that it doesn’t sound like “uncle”.
M said she had some trouble pronouncing the word “flood”, and it sounded like she was saying “flat”, so I explained the difference between the soft “d” and the soft “t” at the end of words. The “t” sound is produced by placing the tip of the tongue on the back of the upper teeth, and the “d” sound is produced by placing the tip of the tongue on the gums just above the upper teeth.
Of course, the Japanese language has both of these sounds as well, but just not at the end of words.
Useful phrases:
butter someone up
spread
sticky
It’s something to do with… (○○に関係する)
burnt my hand/burned my hand
a strong sense of responsibility
a strong resistance to pain
How long will it take to heal?
Dear, oh dear
skin on the milk
hood VS food (pronunciation)
You poor thing!
gruesome
lower back
upper back
ankle VS uncle (pronunciation)