Grapes.
We have a new gym teacher at our school. He looked vaguely familiar when I first met him last week, but I couldn't place the connection. I asked my friend (who works at his old school) about it and she reminded me that we had run into the guy, also a kendo coach, at the Martial Arts Festival in Himeji last year.
So the morning after talking to my friend, I see the teacher and decide to say hi and introduce myself as the girl from the festival. The teacher didn't speak a lot of English so I did it in Japanese, though, and I was really confused when one of the teachers sitting around us said something and everyone started laughing.
In Japanese, a lot of words take on a different meaning if you put the stress in the wrong place (same with any tonal language... or maybe any langauge) or neglect lengthening a vowel. Osaka, for example, is actually OOOOO (long o) saka. Anyways, when I asked the guy about "budo" I apparently put the stress on the end of the word, not the middle (should be bUUUdo). The new teacher understood, but another teacher thought I was talking about grapes (see, meaning changes!) and asked a question about the picnic. Well, I missed what she had said so she explained "I thought you said grape... I thought something might have happened to you at a picnic or something."
Ok, at this point, my face turns bright red because I think she's just told me I mispronounced the word and was talking about RAPE, not Grapes. Oh my. Anyways, we all sort of chuckled and went back to our desks. Later that night I told my Japanese friend the story and realized my mistake that "budo" actually does not mean rape, but does mean grape....
Something similar actually did happen last year when I was interviewing people for an article about blind group dates (konpa or gokan, actually similar to the word for RAPE, gokon) and asked a coworker to tell me about their personal experiences so I thought it was funny I could make the same mistake - with two different words - twice. Guess it was all just twisted aroun, but what a interesting but messy lingual mistake! Haha...
So the morning after talking to my friend, I see the teacher and decide to say hi and introduce myself as the girl from the festival. The teacher didn't speak a lot of English so I did it in Japanese, though, and I was really confused when one of the teachers sitting around us said something and everyone started laughing.
In Japanese, a lot of words take on a different meaning if you put the stress in the wrong place (same with any tonal language... or maybe any langauge) or neglect lengthening a vowel. Osaka, for example, is actually OOOOO (long o) saka. Anyways, when I asked the guy about "budo" I apparently put the stress on the end of the word, not the middle (should be bUUUdo). The new teacher understood, but another teacher thought I was talking about grapes (see, meaning changes!) and asked a question about the picnic. Well, I missed what she had said so she explained "I thought you said grape... I thought something might have happened to you at a picnic or something."
Ok, at this point, my face turns bright red because I think she's just told me I mispronounced the word and was talking about RAPE, not Grapes. Oh my. Anyways, we all sort of chuckled and went back to our desks. Later that night I told my Japanese friend the story and realized my mistake that "budo" actually does not mean rape, but does mean grape....
Something similar actually did happen last year when I was interviewing people for an article about blind group dates (konpa or gokan, actually similar to the word for RAPE, gokon) and asked a coworker to tell me about their personal experiences so I thought it was funny I could make the same mistake - with two different words - twice. Guess it was all just twisted aroun, but what a interesting but messy lingual mistake! Haha...
posted by Brenda Ann Elizabeth McKinney @ 2:05 PM
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