Japanese is a difficult language. Even easy things have a tendency to end up being difficult. My wife says that I like to complicate things, that I am happy when I do, but I feel rather more happy when I manage not to. I think. Which is not that often. (Maybe this means my wife feels like I am generally a happy person – I have not thought about it like that before!)
Japanese is difficult. Every week I am having a Japanese lesson, and after one hour my brain feels seriously confused and tired, disoriented. But then again – as soon as I walk out the door of our little beautiful apartment, I feel acutely confused. And I manage to complicate even the easiest thing (maybe my wife is right, maybe I like to complicate things even if I do not think that I do).
One of the first things you learn in Japanese class, is to say hello, good morning and good evening. Konnichiwa, ohayoo and konbanwa. And so, when I meet our neighbours on the stairs or in front of the recycling station, I say konbanwa. Or ohayoo. Or konnichiwa. And I always get a different reply. If I say ohayoo, the person says konnichiwa. And if I say konnichiwa, I get a konbanwa in reply. Which has made me wonder when it is appropriate to use which phrase, since textbook Japanese does not seem to apply.
My wife says that I do not need to complicate things, that I can just use hello, konnnichiwa, all the time until I get a sense of it and naturally say the appropriate phrase. I still do not think I like to complicate things, I think I just want to understand so that I can make things simple instead because when I do not understand, I get stressed. And when stressed, I really complicate things. (And Japanese is very very easy to complicate, maybe that is why I love the Japanese language). So the other day, in the morning when I was meeting an older gentleman also throwing garbage in the bin, he said good morning to me and smiled and I hear myself saying good evening to him. 恥ずかしい。Embarrassing.
But giving up is not an option. One day I will nail it, I kept telling myself while throwing my embarrassment in the container for burnable trash; my wife believes so. And she is generally right.
Share this post