Lost in Translation

Prepare to learn something new about Japanese! (It won’t be boring, I promise). (Ok, it might be, up until the funny part of it). (But you won’t get the funny part if you don’t read the oh-so-slightly boring educational part). (Again with the zealous usage of parenthetical asides…)

Anyway, whenever you count a number of something in Japanese, it has a counter. This basically means you count people differently than you would count, say, peaches.

If I was counting people, I would use –nin after each number. (There would be some irregular ones, but that’s the general counter). If I was counting small objects (like the aforementioned peaches), I would use –tsu after each number. Flat objects, -mai, long objects, -h/bon, and so on and so forth until you have an entire chart of ways to count. (At which point you have the oh-so-fun task of memorizing it).

I ended up having a question with a counter I didn’t know on my homework. I had to say “there are only three restaurants”. I checked my textbook for a counter chart and couldn’t find it, so I looked up the word for “counter” in my dictionary and went to ask my host family. This coincided with tea time, so everyone was there.

The word for counter is josuushi. Okaasan was still putting something together in the kitchen, so I posed my question about the josuushi to Otoosan and Obaachan.

They both looked at me like I had two heads. I began to wonder if I had looked up the wrong word. I tried to explain what josuushi meant.

That was the point when they decided I was clearly trying to talk about sushi.

After another minute of Obaachan and Otoosan trying to figure out what sort of sushi I was talking about, Okaasan came to the rescue. Having taught Japanese, she knew exactly what I was talking about. She explained it to Obaachan and Otoosan, and then much laughter ensued.

Oh the subtleties of the long vowel.

Here are some other word pairs that are very close:
Biyooin-hair salon
Byooin-hospital
(“So I was at the hospital getting my hair done…”)

Obaasan – grandmother
Obasan – aunt
(Best to leave your drawl at home when going to Auntie’s house…)

Ane - older sister
Ani – older brother
(But you already knew that one, of course)

Okoru – to get angry
Ogoru – to treat someone (to a meal, etc)
(“I’m angry with you!” “Oh, cool. Can we get ice cream too?”)