Some things are inexplicable. For example, my desire to teach myself a second language at age fifty-two. And what, pray tell, was that second language I selected nearly four years ago, you ask? Living in Texas, you’d think that second language would be Spanish, right? Certainly the most practical language a Texan could learn. A language I’d be guaranteed willing participants with whom to practice speaking. Such Spanish speakers would be flattered, as would most in similar circumstances, that someone who isn’t of their nationality nonetheless struggles to communicate in their native tongue, one who strives to roll his R’s and fold his L’s, one who appreciates different languages and cultures.
But no. Instead, I selected what I’d later discover is one of the most difficult languages, if not the most difficult language, for a Westerner to learn. It’s certainly the fastest spoken language on Earth, Spanish supposedly being the second fastest spoken language. Never mind my odds of meeting a Japanese speaker in Central Texas. But that’s me – an unpredictable, impractical, albeit self-motivated, and ultimately whimsical autodidact.
Were we to explore my motivations, I can point to a few clues, indicators of what would unfold. I’d already enjoyed a private fascination with the East for as long as I can recall. Its fanciful myths, what little I knew of its culture, cuisine, customs, costumes, and written language, kanji. All eluded to an ancient past full of wonder. Whether in my mind’s eye or on an elaborate tapestry, I could see the vast image – a lush landscape of rolling hills, mountains drenched in fog, orange pagodas peeking through wispy tendrils of mist. Martial arts, architecture, the whole tai chi vibe had intrigued me over the years. But, honestly, only in my periphery. Until I became a half century old, I didn’t imbibe, didn’t take the plunge, didn’t doff my shoes (as is the custom), slide the shoji aside to step into the pillowed room to sit on the floor at table, and dine on what would become my favorite food in the whole wide world, namely sushi, or in kanji, as it’s known in Japan, 寿司.
Unfortunately, though I instinctively want to justify, defend, and otherwise legitimize my passions and preferences, I can’t rationalize everything. One could say I suffer from various afflictions – a love for Asian women, a distaste for steak (too dense; upsets my stomach), an urge to honk incessantly in traffic just for the hateful looks, a penchant for single malt scotch.
I suppose I could stop frequenting those Vietnamese massage parlors, stop eating fish and start grilling steaks, switch from bourbon to beer, abandon the sneakers and start wearing sandals, but I suspect neither my heart nor my exquisitely fine tastes would appreciate those changes.
Not to suggest I’ve arrived. Far from it. But when you reach a certain plateau, shall we say, in which your vocabulary exceeds that of the average Joe, and your knowledge base and interests renders you a social pariah, you recognize you’ve already reached what constitutes The Fringe. It’s time to then hoist your sails, position your prow toward deeper waters, and embrace whatever tickles your fancy, society be damned.
Hence how I perhaps found myself inadvertently embarking upon a course for the land of the rising sun. Another reason I wanted to teach myself to read, write, and speak a second language was because I’d read that such an exercise utilized parts of the brain we don’t normally use. I also read that this exercise helped to postpone early onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s decease.
I’d already denounced television, the kiss of death for the brain. And the mind, for that matter. I’d already taken other steps to improve myself by reading hundreds of books, and while that may sound irrelevant here, remember, as I’ve written elsewhere, books tend to “… increase vocabulary, evoke thought and emotion, stimulate mental activity and imagination, encourage reflection, nurture patience, improve memory, and cultivate tastes and discernment.”
Studies bear this out. Likewise, studies show improved mental focus for both bilinguals and polyglots. Regardless whether these polyglots learned another language at 17 or 70 years of age, they better themselves in multiple ways, not least of which involves enhancing their cognition.
I assure you I have nothing to gain by claiming my memory overall has improved by hops, skips, jumps, leaps, and bounds. Not to mention that while I used to crack the whip when I saw how poorly English speakers wrote and texted and commented online, I now give them a pass, convinced that many are not native English speakers. Essentially, exploring a new language has made me a bit more merciful. I’m no longer part of the Grammar Gestapo.
After all, I still struggle to roll my R’s as I practice speaking Spanish. I’m still my own source of amusement when testing out certain syllables in Mandarin. One caveat, however: when I discover native English speakers who still can’t spell tomorrow or confuse then with than or mistake there for they’re and for their, the posh smug snob in me wants to have them sterilized. God forgive me. It’s nothing personal. I simply know that if I can better myself, so can anyone. And so no one has an excuse to be stupid. Few things annoy me more than indifference.
But this post isn’t about my study or progress learning a second or third language, dabbling in Korean and Spanish and Mandarin. Instead, I just wanted to clarify a few misunderstandings we in the West have regarding Eastern languages, or more specifically the Japanese language as I’ve managed to comprehend it thus far.
In all honesty, I simply wish to clear up what today we might categorize as misinformation. For example, when I was a Protestant, my Protestant pastor, youth pastor, and parents told me all kinds of nonsense about Catholics and Catholicism, none of which (I would discover decades later doing my own research) turned out to be true.
The same is the case for all sorts of Japanese expressions, pronunciations, and words we in the West misconstrue. Take, for example, the word sayonara. Remember the 1955 hit by Kay Cee Jones entitled “The Japanese Farewell Song”?
The time has come for us to say sayonara …
Sayounara, the romaji form of the Japanese hiragana さようなら, is comparable to farewell. That much is true. It's a term reserved for when you don’t expect to see that person for either an especially long time or perhaps never again. It’s not a substitute for see you later or goodbye.
But Japanese people don’t pronounce the word the way the singer does in the song. The stress is on the second syllable, not the third, and the r is enunciated like Spanish speakers enunciate their r in the name Maria. Not ma ree ah, but rather ma dee ah, with the r voiced like a soft d. Like gracias is more like gada see is, not grah see us, as the Japanese word for thanks (ありがとう; arigatou) is pronounced ah dee gah tow, not ah ree gah tow.
Ages ago, a much younger version of me, who knew nothing about Japanese language or culture, ate with a friend in an amazing sushi bar. I asked my friend what the alcoholic beverage in the decorative porcelain bottle was. He pronounced the noun as sah key. (Note: the Japanese あ (or a) will always sound like the English a in father, never the a in the month of April or the a sound in the fruit apple.)
Many years later I would learn that the Japanese お酒 (osake in romaji) means alcohol in general, not rice wine specifically. This includes beer, whiskey, bourbon, etc. All of that is 酒 (sake). Also, barring the vowel お (o) which makes the word more polite, お酒 isn’t pronounced like English speakers would pronounce sah key, but rather more like sah kay, only here I must clarify something crucial to Japanese speech.
I’ve thought about the best way to convey sound exclusively through words, without the aid of audio, and I think I’ve come up with a decent metaphor. If we think of spoken English syllables as a string of musical notes, connected to one another, almost permanently sustained, then Japanese syllables, in contrast, are like musical notes played staccato. Think of it this way: each connecting syllable in spoken English is like a kind of continuous melody relative to Japanese speech which is more like a series of disconnected, truncated bursts.
For this reason, you won’t hear Japanese people, particularly adults, extend the length of syllables (or moras) beyond their allowed length. So words like お酒 (osake), will sound more like oh sah kay (with the English kay sound cut short). Note that in romaji, the ke best rhymes with the English word kay as in the Cayman Islands. The Japanese vowel え is represented in romaji as e. But this is not the long e sound in English, as in the words easy, queasy, or sleazy. Rather it’s the a sound in the English words stay, play, nay, but cut short.
Think of the sounds, in romaji, for ke (け), re (れ), ne (ね), and te (て) clenched midstride. Utter the word say just like you’d utter the English word say (or せ in hiragana), but midway through it, slap your palm over your mouth to prevent yourself from running out the clock. Never reach the end of the word, the letter y, for instance. So not say, but rather sa (slap)! Again, to be clear, not sa as in saw or father, but sa as in a shortened version of the English words say, pay, day, may, gay, ray, only with the mute button slamming down in the middle of the a’s.)
This will go a long way to sounding more like a native Japanese (or 日本人) speaker. Side note: 日本 is Japanese kanji for the word Japan. Whereas 日本語 is the kanji for anything Japanese (cuisine, architecture, customs, language) except for Japanese people, since person in Japanese is the simple, two-stroke kanji 人 (in romaji hito by itself; jin when paired; nin when persons are being counted). Hence, while always meaning person, the three ways 人 is pronounced depends on context. Much like the English letter c is pronounced like see and sea, in both the words celery and when going over the letter in the alphabet. Whereas when pronouncing the word cat, the letter has a kay sound. Examples:
“I have two brothers.”
“私は兄弟が二人います.”
Watashi wa kyoudai ga futanin imasu.
(Note: in romaji,
particles such as wa, ga, and ka rhyme with English words
such as blaw, thaw, and claw.)
“That person is tall.”
“その人は背が高い.”
Sono hito wa segatakai.
“Do you speak Japanese?”
“日本語が話せますか”
nihongo ga hanase masu ka
(Note: pronouns such as you
and I are omitted in Japanese speech. In fact, あなた, you in Japanese, is considered rude, perhaps the Western equivalent
to pointing in public.
“Are you Japanese?”
“日本人ですか”
nihonjin desu ka
Side note: I find it fascinating that the kanji for man’s best friend, a dog (or 犬) is similar to the kanji for person. Just two additional strokes. I suppose it doesn’t take much to impress me sometimes, but this resemblance serves as a beautiful connection between Americans and another nationality on the other side of the planet as to how we both view the canine.
Since we’re nearing the midway mark in the year of our Lord 2022, I wanted to offer an update on my New Year’s Resolutions. For a summary of those resolutions, refer to my blog post here. My progress thus far, depending on the category, has both exceeded my expectations and been a source of grief.
To wit, I’ve managed to save far more money already than I anticipated. I progressed further into my language learning studies than I intended. I tackled my minimalism with abandon – clearing my apartment of stuff in boxes and closet shelves I never used or referenced. Gone are the clothes either out of fashion or that no longer fit me, receipts as well as manuals for items and appliances I no longer own.
However, in part due to my additional shifts at work (for which I’m grateful), my reading and writing efforts have suffered. In addition, I’ve only recently returned to near normalcy physically. As a result, my projected, annual weight loss program was thwarted because of an unforeseen affliction of chronic knee pain for a good quarter of the year.
Happily, after visiting my doctor, I’ve since found a manageable intake of pain meds and a knee brace to combat this only recently diminished crutch, but it’s worth noting that while my doctor and I can only speculate as to the cause or causes, I’m convinced that much of this knee pain was due to a severe case of sleep deprivation and the accompanying stress and anxiety about my current living arrangement (sleep deprivation due to an upstairs neighbor’s elephant nursery, an indifferent and hence negligent apartment management refusing to enforce its lease regarding noise, and the growing fear that nothing short of committing murder would resolve the issue). In fact, a little over a month ago, my boss asked me how I was coping with my upstairs tenant problem, and I quipped, “Well, the noise has finally ceased. However, the body is beginning to smell.”
Lastly, I’ve still yet to make a friend. Oh, I’ve had opportunities. I’ve gotten invitations to all kinds of events – a shooting range, a dinner party, a night out where I can break in my new tobacco pipe. But I’ve found that when I’m not at work, all I want to do is either curl up with my language learning apps or listen to some jazz or Japanese rock, a lowball glass of Laphroaig in hand, and a web browser open to recent litters in Texas. I’m currently on the prowl for a Blue Lacy pup.
I can’t explain why I prefer the comfort of my couch over a noisy crowd in a public venue, why I opt for kicking off my shoes, slipping into my jimjams, and watching a YouTube video of a bilingual Chinese teacher going over colloquialisms in Mandarin for which I’m ill prepared.
On the bright side, and, again, a surprising, unforeseen blessing, it looks as if I’ll be buying a house within a year’s time. No kidding. We shall see. So not all news is grim, and much of it is cause for glee.
I’m going to stop here because I’m trying to cut down on the length of my posts. God bless and always remember that telling the truth makes you a better person; lying makes you worse by the hour. Something Zarathustra should’ve said if he didn’t. And I don’t think he ever did. Though only Nietzsche would know for sure.
