Comments on: 美味しい！欲しい！

By: Alphons Metselaar

Alphons Metselaar — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 10:06:07 +0000

I stand corrected. Thanks Josh. A wrong explanation nipped in the bud. Goes to show that it’s always hard to get the drift of the intricacies of any language.

By: Josh Reyer

Josh Reyer — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 13:54:56 +0000

@Fonsz
While they are written with the same character, “ushiro” refers to “rear, back, behind”, while “ato” refers to time: “later, afterwards”.

Hiki (hiku) is indeed a transitive verb meaning “pull”, but it’s also an intransitive verb meaning to “move backwards, retreat, pull back”. So “hiki-men” is not really pulling away your strike, but rather a men while retreating.

By: Fonsz

Fonsz — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 09:16:04 +0000

I have to agree for the most part. It helps if you know what some terms mean. Hiki men (or any other hiki technique) for instance is always explained as going backwards. I always wondered why that was because back is “ushiro” or “ato”. (correct me if I’m wrong). But hiki means “pull” so you pull away your strike. This makes more sense in learning the technique properly. The Zen Ken Ren dictionary can be a great help in cases like this.

By: Josh Reyer

Josh Reyer — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 01:34:42 +0000

Winking is generally considered flirting, so no, they generally don’t wink in those situations.

By: Ben Sheppard

Ben Sheppard — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 12:02:27 +0000

The problem I find is when I was learning a new language, and living in the country of origin, I tended to generalise from specifics all the time. In a sense I had to, this was how I was learning. But it also meant that I missed the grey areas. “This guy said this to me and it meant this so that’s what it means”, rather than, “this guy said this to me but it was in this context so I know it means this only sometimes, but I don’t know what it means other times”. Or murkier still, “this guy is very dry so when he says this, he really means this, which is different to when that guy says the same thing”.

For instance when one sensei says your approach to kendo is very “majime”, he means that he admires your serious commitment. Another sensei might say “majime” and mean that he thinks you’re a bit uptight. The latter could be said of a lot of gaijin who land Fresh of the Boat in Japan ready to learn ‘the real kendo’.

One of the things I really miss not having great Japanese skill is to be able to, from all the other subtleties of tone and idiom my interlocutor is using, understand the difference between the former and the latter.

Do the Japanese ever wink to communicate the fact that there is another meaning at work? I’ve never seen it happen and can’t imagine it.

By: Richard Stonell

Richard Stonell — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 04:50:26 +0000

Learning Japanese is great – but some people seem to want to skip the ‘learning’ step. Even people who work hard at kendo…

Naming no names, I’ve met quite a few people who learn about three words of Japanese and suddenly think they’re fluent. It’s just embarrassing for all concerned. Anyone shouting “faito” and so on at a shiai outside Japan just sounds ridiculous.

(Does anyone remember the hilarious 秘書/必勝 debate on KWF?)

By the way, my men usually gets an incredulous 「何だそれ？」 from my sensei…

By: Kent Enfield

Kent Enfield — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:38:40 +0000

Damn, what I usually hear from my sensei regarding my men is さぶい.

As for the cheering in a language neither person understands, I don’t get that either. I guess it seems exotic and cool, but of course they just end up sounding like idiots.

By: Leiv Harstad

Leiv Harstad — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:23:21 +0000

Thanks for sharing Ben.
Ugh.. this brings me back again to cheering on others in a foreign language. I remember attended a taikai in California and a lady instructor was cheering on her friend by yelling “oishii yo” in forced Japanese. Obviously she didn’t know what she was saying because what she was saying was completely wrong, but neither could her friend. Why? Why? Why? I just can’t understand it. What’s the point?

By: Richard Stonell

Richard Stonell — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:17:09 +0000

Of course, うまい can mean both “tasty” and “skilful” (美味い and 上手い).

A similar-sounding word I hear a lot is oshii (惜しい) – literally “regrettable,” it can be used to mean “almost,” or “if only I’d done it a bit better…” Perfect for when you narrowly lose a shiai!

By: George McCall

George McCall — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:09:11 +0000

I’v had an almost similar experience… except I didn’t repeat the word. For a long time I thought I was being told that my men-uchi was “tasty” …. which I thought meant “pretty good…..”