Silly-Billy Language – Japanese

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Gratuitous Hello Kitty

I recently watched Eddie Izzard’s hilarious take on Latin being a silly-billy language. “It has a nominative, a vocative, an accusative, a genitive, a dative and an ablative…. Quad the f—k?”  As I spend this year learning new languages I’ve noticed that Latin is not alone. There’s lots of silly languages. Since I’m in Japan right now, we’ll start with Japanese. After all:

  • It’s really five different languages
  • With ten different words for every number
  • And squiggly pictures instead of an alphabet

First some caveats, since I know this post will go microbial or viral or whatever. My intent is to amuse, not offend. Japanese is no sillier than any other language. I don’t discourage anyone from learning it. The quirks are what makes it fun. I’m having a great time living in Japan, speaking in Japanese, meeting wonderful people, and eating all your sushi.

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Whine

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OK readers, switch on Pandora radio and find some pouty, minor-chord tunes. Break out the cheeseboards and stemless glassware. It’s time for a full-on whine session.

What do I have to whine about on this trip-of-a-lifetime?

(Besides the fact I can’t get Pandora. And don’t even mention Netflix.)

Well, here are the top 4.

  • Japanese is hard
  • Everything I do is wrong
  • I can’t read menus
  • Moving is a pain

Japanese is hard

There. I admit it. For today only, I’m going to say it’s hard. Difficult. Frustrating. Dizzying, confusing, confounding. It’s really just the verbs and the nouns. And the adjectives. And the prepositions. So basically just everything.

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