So one of my primary motivations for studying abroad in Tokyo was to take advantage of the opportunity to practice and hone my Japanese language skills in real-world situations. Buying train fare, casual conversations and ordering food at restaurants all become valuable learning experiences...
In many key situations my limited skills become a very useful tool as I can ask for directions and communicate in cab rides, but sometimes they prove to cause more confusion than clarity.... and anybody who has studied Japanese would understand this perfectly. There are several different ways to express thanx, and each situation may dictate a different spoken word. You may use one word to comment on how hot the weather is, another to describe food... so on and so forth...
The result is a very difficult, yet highly gratifying language experience which can sometimes lead to some funny situations....
Anyways, 2 cases in point:
My friend and I go to a government office to sign up for our mandatory national health insurance. While my buddy takes care of some separate business, I head to the fourth floor to begin the paperwork. As is often the case in Japan there is a person standing in the waiting room specifically to guide you and provide instruction. I approach her with a standard Japanese greeting and ask her, in my mangled Nihongo, where the appropriate office is. In response she spouts out about one thousand words per minute in hyperspeed Japanese. I catch a few words and attempt to respond. The hyperspeed Japanese continues. This process repeats itself for about ten minutes and despite my attempts to incorporate hand signals, the conversation makes absolutely no progress at all. Enter my friend Rich. This is his first time to Japan and he has just begun to study the language. My vocabulary is probably one-hundred times his. As he walks up next to me, the woman shoots some hyper-Japanese at him. He responds with one of the few sentence structures he has command of and tells her that he does not understand Japanese at all. She responds with perfectly clear, highly understandable hyper-English. In a matter of one minute we are at the correct station completing the necessary forms. Five minutes later I am banging my head against a wall.
Second case in point, again, Rich comes to the rescue:
We are at a yakiniku restaurant. The menu consists of raw meats and seafood marinated in various sauces and flavors which we then cook ourselves on a small grill in the center of the dinner table. A great experience and a terrific meal. Our first served dish is tiny little squids. We look at each other with confused glances. We ate squid many times in Japan, but always served raw or as sushi, so we are not quite sure if we cook these squid on the grill, or consume them cold.... Ahhhh, a great opportunity to employ my Nihongo. We press our handy-dandy little waiter call button provided at every table and within two minutes he appears at our side, electronic note pad in hand. I attempt to ask him if we eat the baby squids raw, or cooked. I don't get very far. He glances at me with a look of confusion and tries to employ his shabby English. I ask him hot or cold? Hot or cold? No clear response. The frustration builds and the confusion remains. As the waiter and I continue our struggle... Richie takes action. He snatches one of the raw, uncooked squids with his chopsticks and begins to deliver the brainy little creature into his open mouth. With lightning quick speed the waiter diverts his attention from me, looks at Richie, signals an enormous X with his arms and shouts no! Richie stops cold in his delivery.... The waiter points to the grill.... I bang my head against the wall....
Lessons learned:
1. If they believe you speak their language, be ready to hold to your own, cause the floodgates will open!
2. Hand-signals are universal!!! Use them often and use them wisely!!!
3. Languages are hard!!! Study hard!!!
I'm gonna go study now and probably when I'm done, go out into the city and cause some more confusion!!! Zya matta!
