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| |/ _` | '_ \ / _` | '_ \ / _ \/ __|/ _ \ | |
/\__/ / (_| | |_) | (_| | | | | __/\__ \ __/ | |
\____/ \__,_| .__/ \__,_|_| |_|\___||___/\___| | |
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June 5, 2020 | |
At the grocery store near my apartment, there's a small desserts | |
section. I currently live and work in Japan, and so most of the items | |
in this section are traditional Japanese desserts, and my favorite is | |
this thing called a manjuu. It's an almost saucer-shaped item, with | |
an outer "shell" made from flour and rice powder, surrounding an | |
inner filling like redbean paste. It makes for this really unique | |
contrast of flavors and textures, with a solid, toothsome exterior | |
giving way to a kind of fluffy, creamy interior. If you ever have the | |
chance to get one, I highly recommend it. | |
Check out some manjuu | |
.. ___ | |
I' `~~~,____,. | |
I .__. / | |
I (MMMM) / | |
I (MMMM) | | |
I '*~~*' ( | |
I,~'""`~,,__ \ | |
I `""`` | |
I | |
I | |
I've only lived in Japan for about a year, but I've studied Japanese | |
for the last five to six years. Am I fluent? Not at all, no, but I | |
feel I can navigate myself fairly well around a conversation, as long | |
as it's not too complex or jargon-filled. | |
Like many language learners, the twists and turns that the language | |
presents have at various times fascinated, confused, and frustrated; | |
but up until very recently, I always accepted them as just a part of | |
the language, something not to be questioned, but embraced, in order toErr | |
improve. | |
Recently, though, I've been thinking a lot about language not as a | |
skill, or something to be learned, but as a tool, or something to be | |
used. When you boil it down, that's really all it is, right?--not | |
unlike a hammer, the speaker uses it to accomplish a task more | |
difficult without it, but this task is expressing thoughts, not | |
driving nails. | |
But not all tools are built the same; recently, as I've been using | |
Japanese pretty frequently, I find myself really disliking this tool. | |
At its core, Japanese is remarkably specific. A few examples: | |
* It has numerous ways to say "you" based on the speaker's gender, | |
the listener's gender, the listener's relation to the speaker, and if | |
the speaker is irritated or angry | |
* It has four words for "rice," depending on the rice's level of | |
maturity and processing | |
* It has specific terms to refer to (what I feel are) remarkably | |
specific, obscure concepts, like 24 traditional seasons that are each | |
2 weeks long, various local strains of rice, etc. | |
However, the grammar can also be remarkably vague. Remember all those | |
forms of "you"? You likely won't hear them, as most speakers don't | |
use subjects in their sentences, and especially not pronouns. | |
Moreover, when spoken by Japanese individuals, the language becomes | |
an even more remarkably vague thing. Much like the manjuus I | |
mentioned before, their speech tends to have an outward layer that's | |
presented to the listener, masking one's true inner feelings. | |
Strongly emotional terms like "love" or "hate" are often watered down | |
into "really like" and "don't like very much." The society also tends | |
to avoid outward conflict, so many speakers will communicate | |
criticism or negative feeling not through words, but through verbal | |
hesitation or non-verbal cues - or may not even communicate it at all. | |
With time, I've started to dislike expressing myself in Japanese. | |
It's painful, twisted, and convoluted; it requires so much intonation, | |
body language, honorific verb conjugations, and understatement; and | |
sometimes, I've found that communicating certain ideas just isn't | |
possible. | |
., ,,eeeEEEEEe. qQQp | |
\EP***'' HHHHP` H! , | |
|E HHH' _,eeHhoOQQQb | |
|E HH* `HHP**;ZHHb | |
|E .,eEEEHHH; * .E*H!\Q\ | |
|E\EP**'' HHH; /E* H! \Q,, | |
|E HHH ./E; ,HHher\QQQ,. | |
)E; dHH; .ep* \HP;H` \QQQQ\ | |
(E; .,,,eeEEEHHH (H; ` | |
\EEP**` `*HH; HH | |
` * | |
But here's the question: is it right for me to be frustrated by this? | |
Is it okay for me to prefer using a different, less vague language? | |
What about the fact that my native language, English, has its own | |
vagaries, too? Am I wrong for caving and staying within my safe zone? | |
For me, readers, the jury's still out. But it's getting late, and I'm | |
getting tired, so I'll just finish this manjuu and leave the thinking | |
until tomorrow. | |
--EOF-- |