Brendan in Japan

Language #1

One of the most interesting things about learning another language, is when you start finding the insufficiencies in your own language.

For example 懐かしい (natsukashii) is an adjective used to describe something that brings back memories from a long time ago. You return to your primary school, natsukashii! you think. As a one word response to such a situation, it is largely without equivalent in English.

I already find this all the time with certain Japanese trills. For example, "deshyo?", put at the end of a sentence, means "is it not?", but has the distinct equivalent of not sounding so halting as that phrase or its burberry equivalent, "innit?". In a bi-lingual environment like Linden Hall, this means lots of mixing and matching English and Japanese. We told him 16 books, deshyo?

At other times, the existence of certain words with no equivalents in English, lend a extra authority to what would otherwise be just a contestable piece of wisdom when expressed in English. For example,

幼なじみ　（osananajimi) is a friend since childhood;
親馬鹿　（oyabaka) is a parent who loves their child to the extent they lose all perspective;
子は鎹（kowakasugai) means "the child is a clamp"; in other words, having a child will keep a couple together even when they don't get along.

In English, the idea that a child is often all that keeps a marriage together, is a arguable (and sad) hypothesis about the nature of human relationships. But once it gets its own status as a word, it gains power, and seems to be as present and obvious as other incontestable things given words, like "happiness", "bicycle" or "infatuation".

Of course we do know this in English which is why we steal other language's words: "deja vu" is a perfect example. However if we start to steal Japanese words, we should be careful not to lose track of which way the traffic flows.

If we're not careful, we'll do a Bush: "The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur".