I have a Japanese friend that I skype with twice a week. One day is devoted to English conversation practice and questions and the other day to Japanese conversation practice and questions.
Digression alert! If you don’t have a language partner, you should get one. It’s free and a great way to practice. Just search for “language exchange” and you’ll come across several websites to help you out. Now, some language partners will be great at explaining grammar and answering difficult usage questions and other not so much, but you get conversation practice either way, so go for it!
And now, back to our post.
I love finding out the quirks of languages. My favorite Japanese word is 朝飯前 (あさめしまえ or asameshimae in case you haven’t learned hiragana yet). It literally means “before breakfast” but is the Japanese equivalent of “a piece of cake” or “easy as pie”. Basically, 朝飯前 means that something is so easy that you can do it before breakfast.
New Digression alert! What’s up with all the food comparisons to mean that something is easy. Proper baking isn’t easy. It requires careful measurement and some precision, doesn’t it?
Today I learned a new word that I really like. What do you call this?
Well, that’s a shoe, obviously! Duh!
No, not the shoe, but the way the lace is tied. No secret there, especially since it’s named in the picture, right? Well, my Japanese friend says it is a 蝶々結び (ちょうちょうむすび or chouchoumusubi) which literally translates as “butterfly knot”. I love that!
Have you seen 君たちはどう生きるか (the most recent Ghibli film yet? They called this “The Boy and the Heron” in English. I guess they didn’t like “How Do You Live?” as a title. Anyway, here’s a song from it:
Also, Godzilla Minus One was excellent, and it was fun to see the choices made in the English subtitles. (For example, they translated ダメです different ways at different points in the film.)
Is Japanese hard? Yes. That’s okay. You know what you have to do：
頑張って
Japanese Language Journey 