You Talk Too Much

Originally entitled: The Broken Language.


Herro. Afta rogingu foti monsu heah, I habu kumu to disuriku Katakana beri muchi.

Any idea what I just wrote? I said: Hello. After logging 14 months here, I have come to dislike Katakana very much.

Recently, I was given an eight-page list of everyday Katakana words. Katakana is an alphabet (one of three) used by the Japanese to describe words that are foreign to the country of Japan. Katakana is a phonetic sounding-out of foreign words by using this Japanese alphabet.

This list was written entirely in Katakana, so I had to decode it into recognizable Romanji (English letters). I was left with over 75 per cent of the words still unrecognizable. It lends credence to the old joke: Why is it that he is speaking English, but I don't understand him?"

I was confronted with such Katakana words as: Akado. Is it some sort of martial arts? No. It's an 'Arcade'; Obakoto is 'Overcoat'; Erebeta is 'Elevator'... and just when you think you've got it, they toss out words like Konkuri-to and se-ta. Take a moment and see if you can phonetically sound it out to see the English equivalent.

Give up? It's 'Concrete' and 'Sweater', respectively. Add a prefecture (provincial) accent, and you will no longer wonder why I don't understand the Japanese, and they don't understand me.

Iffu I donto speaku Engarishi wizu a Katakana acucento, I ammu notu andastoodu.
(If I don't speak English with a Katakana accent, I am not understood.)"

Nowhere is this more apparent that at the sebben (seven) junior high schools I entertain at. How can you teach someone proper English diction when they insist on transposing your English words into Katakana? You kan-to.

"Wa didu yu go yastudae, An-do-ryu?"
(Where did you go yesterday, Andrew?)

I replied: "I went to Mosburger." (I emphasized the 'went'. Oh, and Mosburger is a Japanese fast food burger chain that is almost as popular as McDonald's - yet some of my students believe it to be an American restaurant.)

Here is where we add the sound effects of crickets chirping and pencil cases dropping.... as no one understood what I had said.

"Okay, okay... I wento to Mosu-baga."

"Ah, so desu ne. (Ah, okay.)"

For your edification, no one in Japan has, since World War II, ever uttered the phrase "Ah so." It's an ugly American stereotype expression that only exists in television and movies. Yeesh.

I'm also going to lay a bit of blame on the Japanese food industry for helping perpetuate the Katakana crap. I had asked some students at Ohtawara Chu Gakko (Ohtawara Junior High School): "What do you want to eat?"
One answered, "Shichikon."
After making the student repeat the word four times, I had to ask the teacher, Shibata-sensei, just what the heck 'shichikon' was. He went through his Katakana dictionary and said that the word means... are you ready?... 'Sea Chicken."
What the heck is that? A dolphin that tastes like chicken? Then it hit me. No, not another car, but rather inspiration. Does anyone in North America know: "What's the best tuna?" "Chicken of the Sea." It's a tuna commercial slogan that I remembered from the 1970s! Sea Chicken = White Tuna. Here's a fairly recent commercial of that famous brand: HERE.
Red tuna meat is what the Japanese know to be real tuna. The white tuna meat that we North Americans associate with tuna is considered by the Japanese to be the 'garbage' meat of the fish. But... if the Americans like it...
Man-oh-man! Can you believe that several generations of Nihonjin (Japanese people) think that all white meat tuna is called 'sea chicken'?

Sumuwa goingu ku-re-zi,
An-do-ryu Jo-se-fu
Today's title is by George Thorogood & The Destroyers. SHHH.
PS: Check this OUT and remember I first wrote about this back in October of 1991 - which is re-presented here in this blog.